Ablett-inspired Suns thump Kangaroos
Gary Ablett's return helps spark Gold Coast to their second win of the season, a 55-point triumph over North Melbourne.
PT1M28S 620 349GOLD COAST 2.3 5.5 11.9 19.11 (125) NORTH MELBOURNE 0.4 3.6 6.9 10.10 (70)
GOALS Gold Coast Suns: Dixon 7, Ablett 3, Hall 3, Brooksby 2, Russell, Kolodjashnij, Hallahan, Sexton. North Melbourne: Cunnington 2, Higgins 2, Petrie 2, Nahas, Waite, Ziebell.
BEST Gold Coast Suns: Kolodjashnij, Dixon, May, Swallow, Ablett, Nicholls. North Melbourne: Goldstein, Cunnington, Dal Santo, Ziebell, Macmillan .
Injuries: Gold Coast: A Saad (groin), L Russell (finger).
UMPIRES Foot Nicholls Ryan.
CROWD 14,444 at Metricon Stadium.
Let's start with the match highlight, which came early. In a bumper year for the high mark, North's Lindsay Thomas took a serious contender for the best yet: floating for what seemed like forever on the shoulders of Adam Saad, Thomas eventually took the grab facing the wrong way as his opponent twisted and buckled beneath him.
Shaun Atley of the Kangaroos is tackled by Gary Ablett of the Suns during the round 14 match on Saturday. Photo: Getty Images
It was a flash of brilliance, but mark of the year is the only silverware North has any chance of winning this season. The Suns – just one win to their name, on the front pages instead of the back for the wrong reasons – didn't have a hope going into this match. How quickly things can turn.
Charlie Dixon, the hulking forward with ankle issues who is being chased hard by the Brisbane Lions, finished with seven goals in a dominant performance as the Suns first crept, then sprinted to an eventual 55-point hammering of the Roos. Who would have thought the Suns were even capable of kicking 19 goals going into this game? They were buoyed, of course, by the return of their captain/talisman Gary Ablett: niggled and bumped to distraction by Ben Jacobs, far from his best, but present all the same. So too, almost as importantly, was David Swallow, who laid six tackles in the first half and whose influence on the contest grew the longer the game went.
But it was Ablett, as rusty as he was, who landed the killer blows at the moments they were most needed: a set shot in the second quarter from a difficult angle that flew over the umpire's hat as if laser-guided; a snap early in the last that made the margin six goals to extinguish any remain North hopes for a miracle.
The third was a reminder his football genius has not disappeared, accepting a handball on the 50-metre arc, swinging onto his right when barely facing the goals. It was never going to miss. From there, it was party time for the Suns; Aaron Hall's third goal was accompanied by a dance of pure joy rarely seen at Metricon this year.
Swallow's fierceness defined the Suns' work, whose travails this week were quickly dwarfed by an infinitely greater sadness. Playing with an aggression and intensity they've too often lacked this year, they held the Kangaroos goalless for the first quarter, and for most of the second, too.
It took two gifts from an out-of-sorts Nick Malceski – both of which rebounded into the grateful hands of Ben Cunnington – to get North into the game after Dixon had put a 29-point break between the two sides. Shaun Higgins made the margin 11 at half-time, but the Kangaroos looked listless, verging on purposeless.
Half-back Kade Kolodjashnij controlled the game from defence for the Suns, chopping off the Kangaroos' entries at will. He was rewarded in the third quarter with a excellent goal that restored the Suns' advantage to 23 points. When Drew Petrie answered, Keegan Brooksby replied. Then Mitch Hallahan.
Suddenly the Suns were looking at just their second win of the season; North at a loss that would send a cold shiver through theirs. Robin Nahas scrambled a goal that looked more like a panic; Dixon, an irresistible presence when on song, kicked a third. Then a fourth.
Dixon's sixth, midway through the final quarter, was a peach: holding off his opponent with one arm, he controlled the ball high above his head with his free hand, then somehow back-heeled it through; a party trick to match Thomas' earlier in the game. But the Kangaroos couldn't take one after that.
