Christian Petracca, Noah Anderson and Matt Rowell; That's a midfield mix any coach would dream of controlling.
But the recently formed Gold Coast trio is yet to dominate the engine room like most pundits thought they would be heading into the 2026 season. And it was the same story against Hawthorn in a 16-point loss on Friday night.
Around the centre stoppages, the Suns were dominated by the Hawks, especially late in the match. The game changing opening five minutes of the last quarter, which saw Hawthorn boot four unanswered goals in quick succession, highlighted Gold Coast's bizarre deficiencies in the middle, despite the Suns' clear star power.
Speaking in the post-game presser, Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick said the job was up to him to fix his midfield issues that saw Hawthorn win centre clearances 20-12.
"Five goals, four (behinds) from centre bounce and eight goals from turning the ball over in our front half, which was just Suns killing Suns," Hardwick said.
"We just didn't help ourselves, which is frustrating because you are judged by outcome. You're judged by the scoreboard. Our game for most of the night, apart from that 20 per cent with the centre bounce, was pretty strong to be honest, but we just couldn't get the result.
"At the end of the day we were 0-9 in the third quarter (centre bounce clearances). We won first possession, we just lost scramble balls and we just have to get better.
"It's not through lack of effort it's just through lack of detail that we have to make sure we get that read and react part of our game (right).
"That was disappointing and the guys are disappointed as well. We just have to get it right, because a lot of our game is in pretty good shape except for that part, which is so important these days because you just take territory."
Hawthorn's fleet of small forwards also posed a major issue to Gold Coast with Nick Watson (three goals), Dylan Moore (four) and Connor MacDonald (two) also making their mark on the game.
However, Hardwick believes medium defender Joel Jeffrey - who has been the recent target of trade speculation to West Coast - had his best ever game for the club.
"I thought Joel Jeffrey was outstanding tonight," he said.
"I thought he probably played his best game for the footy club to be honest. Moore popped up and kicked the four, he's just a nice neat player, but... a lot of those goals we gave away to be perfectly honest. I thought Joel was very, very good tonight."
