\n Wil Powell acknowledges Gold Coast players need to shoulder most of the blame for a poor season\n <\/p>\n
Wil Powell during round eight between Gold Coast and GWS at People First Stadium, May 3, 2026. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
WIL Powell says Gold Coast players are taking responsibility for the team’s poor season, despite coach Damien Hardwick trying to shoulder the blame at the weekend.<\/p>\n
In a pre-match interview before Sunday’s drought-breaking win over Greater Western Sydney, Hardwick conceded he hadn’t had a good year as coach.<\/p>\n
“I’ve gone away a little bit from my philosophy,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I lay the blame firmly with me. I tried to see the game evolve, and it didn’t quite work.”<\/p>\n
The Suns then eked out a two-point victory over the Giants to snap a 10-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of facing Brisbane on Saturday, Powell, who is in the club’s leadership group, said good coaches like Hardwick took responsibility, but it was much broader than that.<\/p>\n
“That responsibility is on the players as well,” Powell said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“We haven’t been as good as we could be. He’s only part of it, but we’re the main part because we’re the ones that kick the ball around.”<\/p>\n
Off the back of making a maiden finals appearance in 2025, Gold Coast has won just eight of its 21 games this season to be arguably the competition’s biggest disappointment.<\/p>\n
Powell said Sunday’s win was a “sigh of relief” following the lengthy losing streak.<\/p>\n
“It’s a test of resilience and we are a resilient group,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s hard for anyone to keep their head up and their chin up after so many losses and keep a positive attitude. It really does test you.<\/p>\n
“That’s when you really learn a lot about yourself and the things you are capable of.<\/p>\n
“It might not have been the prettiest win, but we just stuck to what we know \u2026 it was gritty, not pretty.”<\/p>\n
Powell will play his 150th game on Saturday after being a shock 19th selection in the 2017 AFL Draft as a skinny, largely unproven product from Western Australia.<\/p>\n
Wil Powell celebrates his first goal during round 15 between Gold Coast and Collingwood at Metricon Stadium, June 30, 2018. Picture: Getty Images<\/p>\n
“I came in as a raw, immature 18-year-old that hadn’t stepped foot in a professional environment day to day,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It was a rude awakening for me when I first got to the club.<\/p>\n
“I’m forever grateful for what this club has given me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wil Powell acknowledges Gold Coast players need to shoulder most of the blame for a poor season Wil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-851119","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851119","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=851119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}