{"id":587008,"date":"2026-04-05T12:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/587008\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T12:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:15:12","slug":"hardwick-slams-laughable-pressure-in-shock-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/587008\/","title":{"rendered":"Hardwick slams ‘laughable’ pressure in shock loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick concedes his AFL premiership fancies were handed a wake-up call by Melbourne in their shock first loss of the season.<\/p>\n

Unbeaten at 3-0 before their bye, the Suns arrived at the MCG on Sunday as hot favourites but were taught a lesson by the exuberant Demons.<\/p>\n

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Hardwick conceded his side was “spanked” in the midfield, with ruckman Jarrod Witts well beaten by Max Gawn.<\/p>\n

He added the Suns’ pressure on their opponents was “laughable”, but rejected suggestions his players had been complacent in the 16.13 (109) to 14.5 (89) defeat.<\/p>\n

“We got beaten in and around contest and they were harder and tougher than us,” Hardwick said.<\/p>\n

“Every now and then this game will give you a wake-up call and give you a kick right in the nuts, and today that was it for us.<\/p>\n

“Our midfield’s better than that. We know that, everyone knows that, but we just didn’t have the desired result today and we had too many players down.”<\/p>\n

The Suns walk off dejected after losing to Melbourne.\u00a0Photo by Quinn Rooney\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Gold Coast had been hot favourites to secure a win that would have seen them equal a club-record winning start to the season.<\/p>\n

“It’s disappointing, but I think people underestimate that side across the road,” Hardwick said.<\/p>\n

“They’ve got a great blend of experience and a spattering of youth.<\/p>\n

“We look at narratives and people look at the ladder last year, but the ladder last year is worth s–t.”<\/p>\n

Reigning Brownlow Medallist Matt Rowell finished with 13 disposals and four clearances.<\/p>\n

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Hardwick eased Rowell back into action against Melbourne on limited minutes after his finger injury.<\/p>\n

“He’s only going to get better as the season progresses,” the coach said.<\/p>\n

“The game was really, really quick and he was probably like the rest of our midfield – he was OK without being outstanding.<\/p>\n

“When you miss seven or eight weeks of footy it does take a little bit of time.”<\/p>\n

Gold Coast face another huge test against Sydney in Gather Round and are unlikely to regain star recruit Christian Petracca from his hamstring injury until the following week.<\/p>\n

“He’s going to give himself a chance, but what we’ve got to remember is it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Hardwick said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a very important game next week and we understand that, but he is an incredibly important player to our long-term future and we’ve got to make sure we make the right call.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick concedes his AFL premiership fancies were handed a wake-up call by Melbourne in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-587008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587008","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=587008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}