By Michael Whiting
 

Gold Coast SUNS coach Guy McKenna says he saw glimpses of his team maturing in Saturday night's 54-point loss against Collingwood.

After trailing by 54 at half-time, the young GC SUNS broke even with the reigning premiers after the break despite conceding a whopping 78-41 inside 50s for the match.

McKenna said he is delighted with the belief he has witnessed building within the squad since the start of the season.

Experienced campaigners Gary Ablett, Nathan Bock, Campbell Brown and Jarrod Harbrow all came to the club full of confidence but McKenna said it was the young players' growth in the area that impressed him.

"You just don't know when the belief is going to come with these young kids," McKenna said.

"Trent McKenzie, Josh Toy, Matt Shaw, he still looks like a boy but he's starting to play like a man, and I couldn't have said that in the first part of the season.

"I can now see flickers of effort and marking ability and his ability to tackle and drag a man down, you can see him starting to do that on a more regular basis.

"So you see them individually grow and then you see the second half in isolation and see that maybe as a team we're moving forward too. That's a pleasing thing."

Despite being impressed with the second half, McKenna said Collingwood simply out-worked his team throughout.

He said the Magpies' ability to run and spread and work both ways was a valuable lesson for the GC SUNS.

"We probably only worked one way in the first half," he said. "We have to learn to do that (both ways) for four quarters. I'd say we played 60 minutes of men's football and we couldn't sustain it.

"This is a fair result against a side like Collingwood, we've seen what they can do against other sides. For us to back that up against St Kilda next week will be a massive challenge."

The GC SUNS coach was full of praise for his captain Gary Ablett, who he said was playing with a knee complaint, as well as full-back Nathan Bock, who restricted Travis Cloke to two goals.