Former AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou is not surprised that neither the Gold Coast Suns or GWS have experienced Grand Final success yet, and doesn't believe it is cause for concern.
Winning an AFL premiership is a difficult task for brand new teams trying to find their place among an already established league and Demetriou knew this when he proposed the inclusion of the new teams in 2011 and 2012.
One of Demetriou's plans to fast-track these two teams to high-level success was the proposal to grant them the allowance to unprecedented draft modifications.
Despite this, the scheme to catch the two teams up to the rest of the competition seems to have failed in the short-term, with GWS coming out as the clearest winner between the two.
Demetriou maintains his stance, saying that the two teams cannot be considered busts this early in their establishment.
GWS have solidified themselves amongst the leagues competition, being unlucky to not make the AFL Grand Final two years straight.
Meanwhile, the Gold Coast Suns have not made a finals appearance in their seven seasons of existence and their plethora of off-field and culture issues that came to surface following the sacking of former coach, Rodney Eade last year.
“It’s hard to win a flag,” the Demetriou told SEN's Whateley.
“You would assume that teams need to win the flag once every 18 years - that is what the competition is supposed to do."
“GWS came very close a couple of years ago. They can’t get there too quickly.”
The Gold Coast has always been a hard market for sporting teams to break in to and is considered somewhat of a black hole in terms of marketability and financially for sporting organisations wishing to expand.
For this reason, people continue to question the AFL's decision to take on the Gold Coast sporting market by establishing a team there, but the ex-CEO remains adamant that the AFL has done a good job of forming a professional sporting club in that location.
“It’s a very hard market, the Gold Coast,” the new NBL advisory board member told SEN's Whateley.
“When we decided to take the decision on Gold Coast the market was booming, then two years later the global financial crisis had a massive impact.
“The Gold Coast are coming out of that now. They were working and living out of sheds there and now with the Commonwealth Games, they have a stadium and a facility which is first class. I think they’ll be fine."
