Who are the greatest finals heroes of the past 50 years of September action? The players whose names instantly come to mind when thoughts turn to fantastic finals performances?

Emerging Gold Coast star Tom Lynch has added his second successive club champion award to his first All-Australian jumper, with the key forward taking out the honour in a landslide result.

On paper, it doesn't look like the Gold Coast Suns made great strides in 2016, but given a better run with injuries expect significant strides in 2017.

Ruckman Tom Nicholls is on the cusp of signing a new deal to stay on with the Gold Coast.

Gold Coast midfielder Dion Prestia has quit the club, telling fans he will be leaving with a heavy heart.

Gold Coast Suns coach Rodney Eade said his side was mentally and physically cooked after last week's 71-point loss to Collingwood. They didn't look exhausted as they opened brightly against Port Adelaide at Metricon; the simpler problem was that they couldn't finish off their work.

Carlton chief executive Stephen Trigg says it would take a "remarkable" deal for the Blues to cede their first-round pick in this year's national draft but has expressed interest in departing Sun, Jaegar O'Meara.

Gold Coast skipper Gary Ablett believes the underperforming Suns can play finals next season without star midfielders Jaeger O'Meara and Dion Prestia.

• ANALYSIS

O'Meara shapes as the most interesting player in this trade period now, and not only because of the Suns' preemptive insistence they will send him to the draft if they have to.

Gold Coast will "make a stance" in their pursuit of compensation from rival AFL clubs for the signature of midfielder Jaeger O'Meara.

It was 1995 when Robert Walls, his side scheduled to play back-to-back games in Perth, had his Brisbane Bears spend an entire week in the western capital. It failed to work, the Bears losing the first game of the extended road trip by 66 points, and the second by 45.

• Live

There's plenty at stake as finals loom, with five of the top-eight sides in action across five big games. Don't miss a kick.

Gold Coast look to bounce back from limp loss to Essendon.

Gold Coast coach Rodney Eade was left dumbfounded by a pair of contentious rushed behinds that Essendon conceded in the tense final quarter of the Suns' thrilling six-point loss to the Bombers on Sunday which were not penalised by the umpires.

The naysayers said Essendon would not win a game this season, but the Bombers went two better than that on Sunday with a come-from-behind six-point win over Gold Coast at Etihad Stadium.

​Gold Coast midfield star Jaeger O'Meara will not be making his AFL comeback this year as he is to undergo season-ending knee surgery.

As Greater Western Sydney coach Leon Cameron put it in the wake of his side's last-ditch win over fellow expansion club Gold Coast, "the mental battle of AFL footy sometimes is harder than the physical battle".

The last time the Gold Coast Suns and Greater Western Sydney met, in round eight, much discussion centred around the progressions of the two expansion clubs. It looked terribly stark at the time: the Giants tore away with the match to win by 91 points, Jeremy Cameron kicking seven goals.

The long wait to see out-of-contract Gold Coast midfielder Jaeger O'Meara back in the seniors looks set to stretch into 2017.