Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick did not hold back as he delivered a timely reality check for his Suns side after a “disappointing” loss to North Melbourne on Saturday afternoon.
The Suns were coming off a statement victory over Collingwood the week prior but failed to back up that effort, with Hardwick particularly critical of his team’s clearance work.
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“It hurts, it certainly hurts,” Hardwick said.
“We’ve just got to grow up as a footy club to be perfectly frank. We sit there and give ourselves enough opportunities but we just don’t play our moments.
“It’s my job as a coach to sit there and demand better because at the moment we’re capable of beating the premiership favourites last week and then this week we let ourselves down. “Now in fairness, North Melbourne have been playing bloody well and congratulations to them, they played an outstanding game of footy today.
“But we have 62 inside 50s, our connection, our contest work inside 50 was poor, our clearance work was poor.
“I’m angry, to be fair. As a footy club we’ve got to grow the f*** up to be perfectly honest. Excuse the language.
“We’ve been in this situation too many times so it’s up to me and the match committee to sit there and get our boys going.”
Hardwick joined the Gold Coast after a 13-year tenure at Richmond and if Saturday’s press conference is anything to go by, it is clear he is already putting an emphasis on demanding the kind of standards needed to lift the Suns to a maiden finals appearance.
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“At the end of the day you put on a Suns jumper, you’ve got to play the game a certain way, you don’t get to pick or choose,” the three-time premiership coach said.
“At the moment we’re not where we need to be and it’s reflective on me as a coach, our organisation as well. So we’ve got to demand better.
“At the end of the day we’re not just here to make up numbers, enough’s enough. We’ve got to sit there and dig deep, double down on what we’re doing and get the result we’re after.
“We need to forge our way into finals, we’ve been well short of that and this is a disappointing result.
“Once again full credit to North Melbourne, they were too good today, but we’ve just got to find a way to get through that storm because at the moment we’re just short.”
Saturday’s loss was the Gold Coast’s eighth away from home, leaving the Suns winless on the road this season.
Hardwick though said the team’s issues are not isolated to games away from Carrara.
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“Look, it happens at home as well at various stages and this is the thing we’re working our way through in trying to figure out where we need to go, the deficiencies that we’ve got, the strengths that we’ve got as a football side,” Hardwick said.
“This football side is better than they know. They’re better than they know. They’ve just got to find a way and it happens at every club at some stage you’ve got to sit there and you have to grow up and that’s my job to help them.
“I’m a part of it and I want to be a part of it and I’m just dying for us to get there but we’re not there yet and we’ve got to find that way to get through it.
“They’re capable, I’m telling you, they’re really capable, this group of people. So whilst we’re disappointed we played a side that’s had a really, really good four to five weeks.
“Let’s take nothing away from North Melbourne and we’ve got some lessons to learn and we’ll get better as a result.”
Hardwick confirmed Touk Miller picked up a wrist injury in the loss but was “not too sure of the damage”, adding he will undergo scans on Sunday.
Sam Day also failed to finish the game after suffering a foot injury, with Hardwick again not certain how long he may be on the sidelines for.