The Gold Coast Suns were stunned on Saturday night by a lively Richmond side, whose mix of veteran stars and ferocious rookies stirred the Suns into some sort of white line fever, taking the game off Gold Coast's terms and forcing them to play catch-up footy.
The Tigers kicked the opening three goals in the first eight minutes, taking advantage of the Suns' ill-discipline, with Gold Coast key defender Mac Andrew getting caught up in the heat of the moment and giving away an unnecessary free kick. The Tigers led by as much as 43 points before a late flurry got the Suns within two straight kicks, but it was ultimately too little, too late.
However, despite the reaction to Gold Coast's poor management of their emotions, the Suns believe they lost the game elsewhere.
"Reflecting on the game, yes, [discipline] cost but it wasn't the only thing that cost us in that game," midfielder Touk Miller told media on Tuesday.
"We all had moments throughout the game that I think we could have done better... At times, we felt we had it on our terms and the style of play was how we wanted it to look, but I don't think we played our moments very well.
"Before the weekend we were number one in ground ball gets, so it's something we pride ourselves on. We want to be a club that plays really hard and puts our head over the ball and I feel like to win those type of stats you also have to work really hard to get to the contest.
"We weren't up to the standard on the weekend in that regard and Richmond taught us a bit of a lesson. Hopefully we don't see that again for some time."
Miller's sentiments, as also addressed by senior coach Damien Hardwick post-game, ring true. The Suns were averaging 95.3 ground ball gets through the first five rounds of this season, including 18 forward 50 ground ball gets per game. Both ranked first in the competition.
Against Richmond, however, they fell well short of these numbers, recording just 16 forward 50 ground ball gets and only 75 across the ground for the match. Richmond won the overall ground ball contests too (85-75), just the second time this season Gold Coast have lost this metric, the other being against Adelaide in their one-point win (112-100).
Furthermore, in Gold Coast's most dominant win of their 2025 campaign against Melbourne, they won the ground ball gets stat by +12, 20 of their 95 coming inside forward 50. It highlights how Hardwick's chaotic brand of football requires a hard-nosed ball-winning edge to be successful, something Saturday night ultimately lack.
Half-back John Noble agreed that getting on top of this area will see them become successful against a tough opposition in Sydney this week.
"We've got great competitors down forward and for us, we were low on our ground ball numbers [against Richmond]," Noble said.
"It's something we've identified that we'll go through this week. We've got faith in all our forwards to not just win the contest or [get the ball to ground] but also win those ground balls as well.
"We need to be consistent with our game, we had a few patches throughout on the weekend where we lowered our colours a little bit which was disappointing. But, we're still forging our identity in our new era. For us, it's about knuckling down on things we take our learning from."
Miller, who ranks second for the Suns in forward 50 ground ball gets with 1.4 per game and leads the team in hard ball gets with 3.8, is optimistic that their work within the upcoming week will put them in good stead for their clash with the Swans.
"We've got to put to bed [the Richmond game]," Miller said. "Today's all about telling the truth, confronting what was and what wasn't on the weekend for us and once we do that, we walk out the door and reset.
"We gave ourselves a lot of opportunity where we just weren't able to connect and didn't have great synergy inside 50. We reviewed the game already and what it looked like and how we can use the ball better. I think we set the ground up really well to give ourselves an opportunity to score, we just weren't able to see those options."
The Suns will look to recapture their early season form with a return home this Sunday, taking on the Sydney Swans, the seventh best ground ball winning side currently.
