By Michael Whiting

Gold Coast SUNS are the newborn of the AFL no longer but coach Guy McKenna is expecting only baby steps in 2012 from his side.

The GC SUNS finished their debut season with just three wins and collected the wooden spoon in 2011 and McKenna is not expecting miracles in the club's second year.

McKenna said success would be measured by seeing incremental improvement rather than wins and losses.

"I think if you put a line through every game we played last year, we played a half of decent footy," McKenna said.

"By our maturation, our development, our pre-season and all those things taken into consideration - not forgetting the opposition of course improving - but we'd expect to play 90 minutes of [good] footy [this season].

"How many wins that equates to, who knows, but we just want to make sure we can play better football, man's football, for longer this season."

Although the GC SUNS pre-season has been blotted by off-field controversies surrounding leaders Campbell Brown and Nathan Bock, their on-field training has barely skipped a beat.

McKenna said "95 per cent" of the club's squad was training strongly with an eye to the first NAB Cup fixtures against Melbourne and the Brisbane Lions at Metricon Stadium on February 25.

He said all the data from endurance and strength testing pointed towards a GC SUNS team that was more physically ready to take on their mature-bodied opponents.

"You'd have to deduce that we're naturally going to improve," McKenna said.

"I don't think the boys are talking it up too much but they're quietly confident that physically they're better and now they just have to put that into practise come game time."

In a stark contrast to last season where they headed to Perth and Sydney, Gold Coast SUNS will minimise its NAB Cup travel with the first two rounds on their home ground.

"To have a couple of games at home is fantastic and hopefully we can pinch a win for the local supporters.

"The boys are really looking forward to that and making sure we get off on the right foot [so we] can charge into round one."