Outgoing Gold Coast GM of Football Jon Haines has outlined two areas where the Suns’ list needs to improve in the off-season.
The club finished 16th on the ladder in 2021 and Haines sees a need for more on-field leadership as well as a ready-made key forward to support Ben King.
King kicked 47 goals for Gold Coast this year, with no one else on the list above 25. Despite this, the 21-year-old did not finish in the top 10 of the club’s best and fairest.
Haines believes they need to look for a key forward in the trade period to support him.
“From a list perspective and from a positional point of view, we’ve been quite open in thinking we need a key forward to support Ben (King),” Haines told Sportsday WA.
“Ben, as well as he did play this year, and the way he’s performed in his career so far, there’s no doubt as a young man getting the opposition’s best key defender each week is a huge challenge for him.
“We’ve seen him play his best footy when Sam Day plays and Sam hasn’t been consistently out there this year.
“So getting a quality key forward to compliment Ben is really important.”
As well as a key forward, Haines believes the Suns need to find support for their leadership group.
“I feel like some on-field experience and leadership and being really strategic with that would be an important addition to the club,” he said.
“Jarrod Witts and Sam Collins and David Swallow and Touk Miller as a leadership group do an unbelievable job. They’re as good a leadership group as I’ve been involved with.
“Without having Witts this year, that was a significant blow from a positional point of view and also a leadership point of view.
“So to spread the load on-field from a leadership perspective in the short term is going to be really important.
“From a list build, they’re probably the two most important parts.
“The midfield needs time to develop. We saw with Alex Davies in the last game of the season he’s going to be a player of the year along with Touk and Dave and Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson, I think we’ve got the nucleus of a midfield there.”