Damien Hardwick isn’t stuffing around up north.
Not that he ever has, but Hardwick is taking an even more ruthless approach with list management this off-season as the Suns coach continues to mould his side ahead of his second season in charge in 2025.
After all, this is his first lot of exit interviews with Gold Coast players.
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It’s a cutthroat ‘shape up or ship out’ approach — an approach the Suns are fully behind the three-time premiership boss with in their bid to play finals for the first time in club history.
“Hardwick is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, he’s been on the warpath in his exit interviews. I think Gold Coast loves it,” Herald Sun journalist Jon Ralph explained on Fox Footy’s On the Couch.
“Players including Malcolm Rosas basically got told: ‘You come back in elite shape, or go and play with someone else’. Malcolm thought: ‘OK, I’ll go and play with someone else’. Found some suitors, then Gold Coast said: ‘No, you’re playing with us again’. It was a shot across the bows.
“I think some player managers have been a little bit disgruntled to ask if Gold Coast knows what the left hand is doing from the right.
“But I’ve spoken to Gold Coast and they are backing ‘Dimma’ (Hardwick) to the hill: ‘It’s why we got him here, we want to spark up this place. We’ve missed finals 14 years in a row. Jack Lukosius, you’re on $1 million, that’s big boy, key forward money. You’re not playing like that, you’re going to get traded’.”
Indeed, the Suns are taking a more serious view than ever before under Hardwick — the club’s fourth permanent coach since its AFL inception in 2011.
It feels like Gold Coast during that time has been on an endless loop, showing promising signs and climbing to the middle part of the ladder without ever breaking through to the top eight … then falling backwards and needing to rebuild again.
So will things be different under Hardwick as they look to break that 14-year run without a finals appearance? GWS has played in four preliminary finals and a grand final in that same period.
Hardwick, 52, got his feet under the table in 2024 in a year the club showed progress at stages including winning a club record 11 games. Still, the Suns fell short of their best ever placing (12th in 2014) and fell considerably short of finals — missing the top eight by two games and healthy percentage.
So while the arrow is pointing up, it showed there’s still plenty of work to do. Hardwick was never going to magically fix things instantly, while more time under his lead will only help nurture the team and develop the club as a whole.
More help is on the way too, with Daniel Rioli and John Noble requesting trades to Gold Coast, which would add more bounce and run across halfback.
Plus Mac Andrew has pledged his commitment to the club on a bumper $12 million, nine-year extension in another good sign.
‘We’ve put no pressure on ourselves’ | 01:39
Then there’s the Dustin Martin situation.
There’d been rumblings all season the Tigers champion was open to reuniting with Hardwick at the Suns and extending his career up north.
That appeared to go cold for a period when Martin called time on his AFL career, before it recently emerged the three-time Norm Smith medallist met up with Hardwick post season and was considering a retirement backflip.
Indications are that Martin, 33, has more interest in joining the Suns than they do in him, while he could be offered a contract worth around the $300,000 mark.
That’s a fair pay cut for one of the game’s all-time greats on a contract reportedly worth north of $1 million this year at Richmond.
So why is Gold Coast only offering $300,000?
“There was lots of discussions between Dusty and Gold Coast. Then he retired, radio silence and in two months, they spent their money everywhere on Mac Andrew, Daniel Rioli and John Noble,” Ralph told On the Couch.
“Then he calls Damien Hardwick and says: ‘Hey, I’m unretiring myself.’ But they haven’t got the cash.
“So a really interesting litmus test, do you want to play for $300,000? If he does, it’s the right reasons. Come and play in their first finals series and show your leadership.
“If not and you’re looking for superannuation, maybe it’s not the right reasons.
“I think he gets there, but I think that $300,000 figure is really instructive about whether he wants that money.”
It led Demons Legend Garry Lyon to query whether a lesser salary could mean Martin doesn’t take the move as seriously — and thus isn’t the best version of himself.
“I’d be more confident if he was on $700,000, then he has to live up to the $700,000. My concern would be $300,000 is a bit of loose change,” Lyon told On the Couch.
It sets up a fascination situation for all parties, though mainly the Suns, where they’ll need to work out if the 302-gamer is the right fit for them moving forward.
That also comes down to how prepared Martin is to fully commit himself to being in peak physical condition and embrace the Suns’ culture after appearing to lack motivation in Richmond’s massive slide to the bottom of the ladder this year.
Does he really want to help this club get to its first finals campaign, if not achieve more? It’d be some legacy piece for both him and Hardwick, who’ve already achieved so much together.
What he provides on game day aside, there’s no denying the marketing pull and general aura of the footy rockstar in a part of the country with growing AFL interest.
Much like Gary Ablett Jr. did, it’d provide a buzz on the Gold Cold that can’t be quantified. That in itself is worth something.
With the greatest of respect to a future Hall of Famer, there’s also a question around if he’s a sure thing to feature in Gold Coast’s starting side. This is another element all parties should be weighing up.
This isn’t the Suns teams of years past, but a side stacked with more star power than ever before and blessed with great depth — exemplified by last year’s VFL premiership win.
“The only question is he happy to run around fore the Gold Coast VFL side if need be?,” Lyon posed.
Triple premiership Lion Jonathan Brown endorsed the move if Martin is “fully fit, energised and motivated,” noting how healthy he’s been across his career.
“I certainly wouldn’t hold anything against him if he wants to try and wring the towel dry and give himself an opportunity in an environment where he’ll have relative anonymity … in a comfortable system under Damien Hardwick,” Brown said.
Hardwick sensationally said when he arrived at the Suns last year they already had 80 per cent of their next premiership team.
So would the 2024 additions plus Rioli, Noble and Martin get them to 100 per cent? Plus more disciplining amongst it all? One off-season won’t change everything, but it can make a heck of a difference.
Source Agencies
