It's easy to hit a side when they're down, but does that count when they've never been up?

You think going for Richmond is tough?

Imagine supporting a team with 8742* first round draft picks plusย the best player this decade (at the very least) has seen.

Imagine losing to your closest rivals who had been almost guaranteed for the wooden spoon prior to round one then beating a recentย three-time premier by 84 points just a fortnight later.

What's more frustrating for Suns supporters is that they display these kinds of performances in one game, most recently on the weekend against Melbourne.

After leading by five goals early in the third quarter, they went on to lose by almost six goals, something which up and coming midfielder Touk Miller said simply wasn't acceptable.

"We didn't show up when the game was on the line, which was really disappointing," Miller said.

Miller went on to agree withย coach Rodney Eade that his message wasn't sinking in to the players.

That in itself has to be ringing alarm bells in the heads of chairman Tony Cochrane and CEO Mark Evans.

Eade was hired at the age of 56, following four years alongside Nathan Buckley in the Collingwood coaches box as a football and coaching strategist.

He replaced Guy McKenna, a man 11 years his junior who had previously been involved in successful coaching boxes such as the West Coast and Collingwood.

The Suns had improved in McKenna's tenure, albeit somewhat slowly, and had a 7-2 record after nine rounds in the year that he was replaced, with captain and superstar Gary Ablett going down in the latter half of the year through injury. That season, they finished just two games outside of the top eight.

It now appears likely that Eade won't be there in 2011 and while hindsight is a wonderful thing, were there any real indicators that Eade was the man to propelย this club into flag contention?

Off the field, the situation is almost as bleak for the holiday destination club.

Just as recently as under a month ago, former AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou said that the Suns would always remain a "small football club", despite costing over $210 million (along with GWS) to introduce.

Mark Evans, a man who had a large hand in Hawthorn's period of sustained success and former ATL football operations manager, is now the CEO of the Suns following his appointment earlier this year.

While this is a fantastic acquisition for the Suns, you can't help but think this move was orchestrated by the AFL in a bid to set the flailing club on the right path.

As it stands in 2017, their membership numbers are down by a whopping 23.91% of their 2015 figure.

Not only has their position taken a turn for the worse since 2015,ย but to make matters worse, their star backman and co-captain Steven May is out of contract at the end of the season.

And we need not tell you about Gary Ablett's situation that is far from over despite the two-time Brownlow medallist being under contract for the 2018 season.

This clubย has stars in their squad with core pieces at either end of the ground.

The Suns have potential. There is no doubting that.

However, as it stands right now, itย seems as though the Suns have been set up to fail, both on and off the field.

*Number of first round picks might have been exaggerated.