A PASSIONATE group of Gold Coast members fronted a club forum on Tuesday night to question the Suns' leadership over its poor on-field form.
Coach Rodney Eade, CEO Andrew Travis, football manager Marcus Ashcroft and head of physical performance Justin Cordy all fielded questions from close to 150 members who turned up at Metricon Stadium.
It was a strong turnout from a supporter base that has had its interest levels questioned in recent weeks.
Topics largely centred around the club's catastrophic injury toll, which was primarily addressed by Cordy, its gameplan and list management.
Vice-captain Steven May even made an impassioned address about how tight the playing group is.
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With 22 players currently on its injured list, most interest centred on Cordy, who came to the club in the off-season after the Suns experienced a disastrous 2015.
He used a series of graphs to explain just where the injuries had originated this season and said 85 per cent of games missed had been due to collisions.
He said the first soft-tissue injury of the season – the more preventable variety – only occurred three weeks ago with Matt Rosa's hamstring and that their incidence was almost half what it had been in 2014 and 2015.
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Ashcroft confirmed skipper Gary Ablett would return against West Coast on Sunday after missing last week through concussion – which was met with raucous applause – as would Aaron Hall (shoulder), Tom Nicholls and May from suspension.
He conceded the club still had to improve its depth and intimated it would look to find mature bodies through the trade period.
"We think our best 25 is as competitive as any best 25 in the AFL," Ashcroft said.
"I think what we've seen subsequent to that … is that we don't have the depth of resilience and depth of leadership.
"We're working on that a lot in our preparation, game to game.
"We certainly think we need some mature talent to help."
Ablett was on-hand to greet members, along with vice-captains May, Tom Lynch and Dion Prestia.
While Ashcroft confirmed the club had not started contract negotiations with either Jaeger O'Meara or Dion Prestia, May took the microphone – unprompted – and put a convincing case forward on why the pair should stay.
"You can't question our mateship and brotherhood," he said.
"I know the last contract I signed I had offers to sign elsewhere. I couldn't leave my teammates.
"We came here as a bunch of 17 and 18-year-olds and have gone through tough times, and once it comes down to whether you're leaving or not, the easy option would be to go to a Melbourne club to play finals.
"The reward will be greater after going through the tough times.
"We're an incredibly tight bunch of guys."
