AFTER a horror 2015, Gold Coast's fast start to this season is turning heads.
The Suns have wins against Essendon and Fremantle in the opening fortnight, and could make it a perfect first month with victories over Carlton at Metricon Stadium on Saturday night and the Brisbane Lions next week.
They won just four games, with one draw, all of last season.
Vice-captain Dion Prestia says the early form is being driven by higher expectations, while skipper Gary Ablett says it's coming from an injection of self-belief.
Prestia played just eight games last season and Ablett six, and both have noticed a huge change since returning to the midfield this season.
There's Aaron Hall bursting from stoppages, Jesse Lonergan winning the contested ball, and Alex Sexton delivering it with precision.
Ablett told AFL.com.au the improvement is coming from a diet of off-season drills coordinated by the coaches and leadership group after identifying the team's shortcomings.
"Those drills were based around the basics of football, using your body properly, running patterns, where you position yourself on the field, and just doing those things well," Ablett said.
"If you look at a team like Hawthorn, although they have players that do the flashy things, they just do the basics of football so well.
"That's all we've been talking about all pre-season. We don't need anything special from one individual or a handful of guys, but if everyone plays their role, we believe we've got the list to compete against anyone. I can just see the self-belief in the boys."
More belief has led to greater expectations.
Prestia says the competition for spots is driving players to greater heights. The Suns now expect to win, and they don't accept mediocrity along the way.
"If you're not up to those expectations, you're not going to play. We've got so much depth this year," Prestia said.
"This year you have to do everything right or you're not going to get a game. We can't accept missed handballs, we can't accept missed kicks.
"That little bit of pressure we put on each other in the off-season is paying off in-season.
"Everyone now gets involved defensively. We know we'll lose stoppages sometimes, but as long as our pressure is high, we'll get things going.
"It's just the expectations on each other and individually to start impacting games more. We expect to win every game now."
Prestia said following last week's ground-breaking win against the Dockers, it was right back to work.
He said after five losing seasons at the club, he doesn't just expect the Suns to make the finals, but make an impact.
"We don't want to be a team that finishes eighth and gets knocked out first round," he said.
"We want to be a finals contender, and that starts with this weekend. Carlton is a lot better than people think.
"We need to back up our performance from last week. If we lose this weekend, last weekend means nothing.
"As long as we don't think we're just going to come in and win … we know we need to improve a lot before we can go into games expecting to win."
