After their sixth year as a member of the Australian Football League, the Gold Coast Suns remain the "second" team from the state of Queensland (on the eastern coast - Brisbane is the other one). In their expansion year, as well as year two, they managed a record of 3-19, not unexpected for a pack of youngsters. In 2013, their third year, they raised the bar with an eight-win season, and in 2014, they were headed for their first finals berth in just their fourth year, sporting a record of 7-2 after round ten, and still at 9-6 and firmly within the top eight when, during their round 16 match with Collingwood, star player Gary Ablett Jr. was thrown onto his left shoulder, injuring it sufficiently to require season-ending surgery.
When Gold Coast was forming their initial roster in the summer of 2010, they made a remarkable move to acquire Geelong star Gary Ablett, Jr. (pictured above). Ablett was already a Brownlow medalist in 2009 ("MVP", Americans) and was generally regarded as one of the best midfielders in the game. Over the last four years, Ablett has established himself as the undisputed best footy player in the world, winning the 2013 Brownlow and, amazingly, coming in second for the award this year despite missing the last seven games of a 22-game season! When Ablett went down, so did the Suns: 1-6 over their last seven games, falling to 10-12 and two games short of their first post-season play in 2014.
Unfortunately, 2015 and 2016 were seasons with continued injury problems, with the Suns and Ablett having to use more different players than any other club - and their results show it. They're back to winning five games a year over the last two years, but when your top six midfielders are all gone for several consecutive games this year, it's hard to win - think Arizona Cardinals the year they were on quarterback number four and five when they started 11-1 two years ago...
So...a young team with a transcendent superstar player, trying to lead them to heights they've never accomplished. Hmmm...
Their American counterpart: The Cleveland Cavaliers
Who else but
LeBron could Ablett be rightfully compared to? LeBron James "came home"
to Cleveland two summers to play once again for his hometown team, to
bring a championship to Ohio for the first time. And he's surrounded by
young talent like Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, and Tristan Thompson. Ablett
has a quickly-improving stable of young guns around him as well - Dion
Prestia, Harley Bennell, Tom Lynch and Jaeger O'Meara, the Young Gun
winner last year as top rookie.
Without
Ablett, the son of legendary Geelong scorer Gary Ablett (Sr.), the Suns
are bottom-fodder; with him, they will threaten for a top-4 spot in the
AFL if they ever get their full roster to work with for a full season. When LeBron left Cleveland in 2010, they went from the best
record in the NBA to a club-record 19-game losing streak the following
season. Transcendent players change the game. Both Ablett and James are the very definition of transcendent within their own sport.
The Cavaliers won their first-ever championship in 2016, with a legendary performance by LeBron James and a legendary comeback from 3-1 down against the 73-9 Golden State Warriors. Will the Gold Coast Suns be able to match that achievement? Probably not in 2017...but it's possible down the road.
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