Is Damien Hardwick looking back at Richmond's good old days hurting the Gold Coast Suns?
Former Sun and Tiger Oleg Markov believes the tension between Hardwick and his players is stemming from the coach's references to the golden years at Punt Road.
Gold Coast just suffered its 10th consecutive defeat, and has bundled out of the finals race.
“I love ‘Dimma'. I like how he's always had a theme; if it's one of his good things, he used to get other sports involved,” Markov told Clubby Sports' Footy and Friends podcast.
“I feel like he's trying to instil a little bit of that, but he's maybe not getting the buy-in from the boys.
“I've heard whispers that they don't like the fact that he's relating a lot of it back to Richmond, but you sort of need to build a little bit of belief that it's possible and doable.
“I know (the Suns) are their own identity, but there's actually a person (Hardwick) who wants the best for you and wants the best for himself.”
Markov had the unique experience of playing under Hardwick for five years and watched as the club secured three premierships amid the Tigers dynasty, before heading to Gold Coast in 2021 for a pair of seasons.
Hardwick and his players have consistently attempted to quash reports of a rift within the club, including reigning Brownlow Medallist Matt Rowell, who has been well below his best this year.
"There's no truth in that. Me and 'Dimma' have a good relationship; we're very honest with each other.
"We had a good chat after it all came out and were both as surprised as each other.
"There's been a lot of noise around that, and there's definitely not any disharmony. The position we're in, there's going to be some hard conversations because we're not where we want to be."
Leader Touk Miller also addressed the disharmony talks last week following the incident between Christian Petracca and Leo Lombard. During a tough loss, the latter used expletives towards his veteran teammate.
“You go to the players first and foremost and check in with both of them. When something gets blown up in the media like that, it's never nice for anyone,” Miller said on AFL 360.
“The main thing for those two is it's obviously a bad look on both sides, but the conversation they had afterwards is the main thing.
“They spend a lot of time together in the locker room, they spend a lot of time together on the footy field, so I think it was really good for Christian as a senior player to get to Leo as a younger player to make sure they put that fire out pretty quick."
The Suns can mathematically make the Wildcard Round, but need everything to go right ahead of three weeks against finals fancies GWS, Brisbane and St Kilda.
