This was published 7 years ago
Gold Coast Suns coach Rodney Eade says Gary Ablett can return to his best form
By Ronny Lerner
Gold Coast coach Rodney Eade believes his champion midfielder Gary Ablett is capable of recapturing his best form this season.
Ablett's last three seasons have been ravaged by injury with shoulder and knee issues restricting him to just 20 of a possible 51 matches.
Prior to his wretched run, Ablett was clearly the best player in the competition and was heading towards a third Brownlow Medal before a dislocated shoulder cut his 2014 season short in round 15.
Since then, the 32-year-old has only showed glimpses of his best form, without setting the world on fire.
Gary Ablett still has his speed, which is a good sign according to Rodney Eade.Credit: Getty Images
"All you can judge on is the way they train and he's training exceptionally well," Eade told RSN radio on Tuesday.
"He's running fantastic at the moment so on the basis of that you'd think he'd be able to maintain his level. I don't think he's going to lose his touch as such.
"I think the older players when they start to go, it's a bit in their legs, they're running and their speed – he's still got that."
It's been an eventful off-season for Ablett who not only had a request to return to Geelong denied, but also let go of the captaincy reins.
Tom Lynch and Steven May are the Suns' new co-captains and Eade said the time was right for a change of leadership.
"We had a chat before the season finished and he (Ablett) said he was leaning towards that he thought it was right to hand the captaincy over," Eade said.
"He thought the next wave of players were ready to take over, and I think with his shoulder as well, he's had two seasons really that have been hampered by the shoulder, I think he just wanted to be able to concentrate on that and get back to playing his best footy.
"Steve and Tom have really embraced it, as well as the leadership group we've got. Certainly, Gary will be around in leadership mode to help and mentor the younger guys, which Steven has really spoken to him about and really reinforced so I think it's a win-win situation."
Eade said Lynch and May have already grown into their new roles but he didn't want the pair to try and be "something they're not" and stressed the most important thing for the star bookends to do was play good footy.
"Don't try and think there's this magical thing called leadership or captaincy. Searching for it can be a distraction from playing well," Eade said.
Lynch took his game to another level in 2016, finishing equal third in the Coleman Medal with a career-best 66 goals and earning All-Australian honours despite playing for a team that only won six games and finished in the bottom five for inside-50s.
And Eade predicted that there was still room for improvement in his reigning best-and-fairest winner.
"Most tall players don't blossom until they're 25-plus so he's coming into that phase now," he said.
Gold Coast have experienced a dark period recently with just 10 wins in the last two years, but Eade said the mood had changed dramatically since the end of the season with a host of key players re-signing, plenty of new recruits arriving and their new state-of-the-art training facilities ready to use.
"It's really given them all a real lift and they're tending to hang around longer after training and be here earlier," he said.
"It is a marked difference and you can see the effect it's having on the guys."