Dennis and Ingrid Dawes have been avid Gold Coast Suns fans since the club entered the league in 2009.<\/p>\n
“It was magic, absolutely magic,” Mrs Dawes said.<\/p>\n
The fact that the winning point was kicked by the retiring David Swallow with just nine seconds left on the clock just added to the hype.<\/p>\n
“Could not have scripted it any better \u2014 it was the footy gods being nice,” Ms Dawes said.<\/p>\n
Ingrid and Dennis Dawes are long-term Suns fans. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n
And the fact that it will be played against Brisbane Lions in the state’s first finals QClash makes it a massive moment for the code in Queensland.<\/p>\n
Dennis Dawes said “everybody is chuffed” for this weekend’s match against the Brisbane Lions, which will be “great for the code”.<\/p>\n
“Brisbane’s banged up a bit so there’s every chance,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Imagine them playing Collingwood in a couple weeks time \u2014 that would be just so good.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Harry Kerr (far right) and his team mates from Carrara Saints Football club celebrate “silly Sunday”. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n
Harry Kerr and his team mates from the Carrara Saints footy club have been celebrating the Suns’ win most of the weekend, along with their own reserve division grand final win.<\/p>\n
“We were actually at the pub with all the boys so it was pretty special,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Everyone was cheering it on \u2014 stuff you can’t even write about.”<\/p>\n
He said the Suns’ 2025 season has changed “the vibe” around the club.<\/p>\n
“Having juniors and young people seeing that happen, hopefully driving them to come and try the sport, it’s massive for footy in Queensland,” Mr Kerr said.<\/p>\n
“Winning this years has helped \u2014 a lot of people are talking about them a lot more now and starting to take notice.”<\/p>\n
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli was also thrilled with the weekend’s result and said he was looking forward to the QClash this weekend.<\/p>\n
His electorate is in the Gold Coast and he is backing the Suns.<\/p>\n
“It’ll be good either way but you’ve got to love an underdog story, haven’t you? Mr Crissafulli said.<\/p>\n
“Go the Suns.”<\/p>\n
Suns arrive home<\/p>\n
The Suns’ players flew back into the Gold Coast on Sunday afternoon where they were greeted by jubilant fans.<\/p>\n
Suns super fan Terry Vanes and his daughter Zara Vanes cheered on the players as they touched down at Coolangatta airport.<\/p>\n
Mr Zanes joked that the win was “much better” than the birth of his daughter.<\/p>\n
“[It’s] momentous for our club \u2014 after 15 years of struggle, we’re here on the big stage and we can match it,” Mr Vanes said.<\/p>\n
Terry and Zara Vanes are passionate Gold Coast Suns fans.\u00a0 (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n
He was riding the high of the win and had no concerns about facing the Lions this weekend.<\/p>\n
“No contest, they’re out, they’re gone,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We are heading up the M1 for victory, we’re bringing it back down the Gold Coast \u2014 look out Collingwood the following week.”<\/p>\n
Back on home soil, captain Noah Anderson said it did not feel real when the buzzer sounded on Saturday and he realised his team had taken home the win.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Noah Anderson (centre) addresses the Gold Coast Suns during round 20 match.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 (Getty Images: AFL Photos\/Russell Freeman)<\/p>\n
“In our first final playing away in a hostile environment to be able to come out on top the way we did was pretty special,” Anderson said.<\/p>\n
The star midfielder said it was even more special that he was playing in front of a horde of Gold Coast supporters in the final moments of the game.<\/p>\n
“They were so loud, it shows the growth of our club that we get such good representation away from home,” he said.<\/p>\n
History-making match<\/p>\n
AFL Queensland chief executive Trisha Squires said next week’s semifinal against Brisbane could be the biggest game in Queensland AFL history.<\/p>\n
“This will be the biggest ever QClash,” Ms Squires said.<\/p>\n
“We have the two Queensland clubs in the AFL finals for the first time in the 129-year history of the AFL\/VFL.<\/p>\n
“It’s a big moment for Queensland footy.”<\/p>\n
Ms Squires said participation numbers would surge in Queensland because of the teams’ successes.<\/p>\n
“We’ve broken participation records the past three years in a row \u2014 at the moment, we’re up 12 per cent on this time last year,” Ms Squires said.<\/p>\n
“We know the next couple of weeks is going to add to that because more people will start to get curious about our game and get involved in our game.”<\/p>\n
She said historically, Queensland had not been considered an AFL state, but it “really” had become one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elated Gold Coast Suns fans say the club is finally being rewarded after “15 years of struggle”, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,3237,32121,16308,10124,9130,4127,88528,9738,85,9391],"class_list":["post-126493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-brisbane-lions","tag-elimination-final","tag-finals","tag-fremantle-dockers","tag-gold-coast-suns","tag-lions","tag-qclash","tag-semifinals","tag-sports","tag-suns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}