Gold Coast\u2019s 3.11 return at Optus Stadium on Sunday isn\u2019t its worst ever AFL score, but it\u2019s never kicked a lower total against the Dockers.<\/p>\n
The Suns didn\u2019t fire a shot against the top ranked Dockers. They never looked like reaching the 5.9 (39), their previous lowest against Fremantle, that they scored in round 2, 2014.<\/p>\n
The performance was also well short of what they produced at the same venue at the end of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
Remember that clash? Fremantle obviously did.<\/p>\n
David Swallow kicked a late behind to give the Suns a memorable one-point victory in last year\u2019s 2025 Elimination Final.<\/p>\n
The respective sides\u2019 2026 campaigns are on very different trajectories now, though.<\/p>\n
The 11.14 (80) to 3.11 (29) victory was the Fremantle\u2019s 14th consecutive win.<\/p>\n
However, Gold Coast is now fighting hard to make the Wildcard round after falling to a fifth loss on the trot.<\/p>\n
Free possessions<\/p>\n
The Suns did manage to win one of the key stats looked at in games: contested possessions. They claimed that 128-116.<\/p>\n
But the Dockers uncontested possession game was again at its best.<\/p>\n
They had 268 possessions without pressure from a Gold Coast player. The Suns had just 191 in this area, a difference of 77.<\/p>\n
The Fremantle player that the Suns could ill-afford to get on his own, due to how dangerous he is with the ball, was Murphy Reid.<\/p>\n
But of his 28 possessions, 24 were uncontested. Of Andrew Brayshaw\u2019s 29 possessions, 24 were uncontested.<\/p>\n
The Dockers have damaged sides in this area over the past six weeks.<\/p>\n
In the five games, all wins, before Sunday, they had an advantage of 201 uncontested at an average of 40 per game.<\/p>\n
Maybe teams should start playing a bit tighter.<\/p>\n
Fierce form<\/p>\n
Luke Jackson is not playing the game like rucks should.<\/p>\n
He kicked two goals against the Suns, the fourth game this season he\u2019s hit the scoreboard multiple times.<\/p>\n
He has kicked eight in his past three games, after booting three in each clash against North Melbourne and Geelong.<\/p>\n
He now has 17 goals for the season.<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s also getting plenty of the ball.<\/p>\n
Jackson is averaging almost 20 disposals per game and had 15 against the Suns. He also took five marks.<\/p>\n
He took three of those marks inside their attacking 50m area. The Dockers took a total of 17 of these, opposed to the Suns four.<\/p>\n
Sean Darcy returned to the Dockers line up on Sunday, with Mason Cox relegated to the WAFL.<\/p>\n
It was a modest return for Darcy, who had just six disposals, 20 hit outs and a goal.<\/p>\n
Clearing the way<\/p>\n
As good as Jackson was though, the Suns also won the clearances battle.<\/p>\n
They won the centre clearance statistic 8-7, with Noah Anderson having three.<\/p>\n
They won the stoppage clearance statistic, Anderson and Matt Rowell having five each.<\/p>\n
But they were unable to turn it into an advantage in attack.<\/p>\n
Gold Coast only went forward 40 times, compared to Fremantle\u2019s 54.<\/p>\n
While that difference wasn\u2019t an issue for the Suns in last year\u2019s Elimination Final, it was on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Last year, in that thriller, the Suns only went forward 49 times, but managed to kick a much more efficient 11.14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gold Coast\u2019s 3.11 return at Optus Stadium on Sunday isn\u2019t its worst ever AFL score, but it\u2019s never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[364805,638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-765594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-matchidafl20261607","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765594","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=765594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}