Stuart Dew pictured during Gold Coast's clash against St Kilda in round four, 2023. Picture: AFL Photos

GOLD Coast is still hopeful of playing finals in 2023, with football manager Wayne Campbell saying it has a few small areas to tidy up to arrest a slow start to the season.

The Suns watched a 23-point half-time lead evaporate against Fremantle at Norwood last Friday, conceding seven of the game’s final nine goals to drop to a 1-4 record.

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Despite the slow start, Campbell says the Suns – who face North Melbourne at Heritage Bank Stadium on Sunday – are keeping their focus narrow, throwing his support behind coach Stuart Dew.

"Stuey knows as a senior coach he's always under pressure," Campbell said on Tuesday.

"If you win some games the pressure drops a little bit, if you lose some games it ramps up a little bit.

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"We're all under pressure, we're all in this together.

"We know we're not where we want to be. We know Stuey is the public face of that, but we're also right behind him and beside him as well."

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Campbell said much like last year, when the Suns were 2-5, he had seen no change in Dew's demeanour despite back-to-back losses.

He said they had not fully capitalised on their own strong play, and then too easily conceded momentum to the opposition.

This was a mental challenge the Suns players had to address, along with some structural tinkering and change of pace with ball movement that might help when games tightened up, he said.

Wil Powell and Touk Miller look dejected after Gold Coast's loss to Fremantle in round five, 2023. Picture: AFL Photos

"We're all flat and upset for the 24 hours afterwards … but when you turn up at 7am on Monday you're back on and working at your problems and also looking at the things you're doing well.

"We feel like last week we turned a little corner, we just didn't get the result we were after.

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"We'd love to (play finals). We're certainly not throwing that away at the moment.

"We were 2-5 last year and dug ourselves out to get ahead of the ledger by the bye.

"Finals are a fair way away. We'll have a crack at today, we'll have a crack at North and we'll get on from there."