The Gold Coast SUNS will play host to the reigning premiers Melbourne Demons at Metricon Stadium in Round 2 as the AFL confirmed an exciting 2022 Toyota AFL Premiership fixture for Gold Coast football fans.

SUNS fans can also look forward to Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond and Geelong travelling North to Metricon Stadium as the AFL today officially announced its 2022 Fixture.

Opting to keep flexibility, given the interruptions in recent years, the AFL has confirmed the SUNS opponents for the rest of the season, however dates and times will be locked in throughout the year.

Gold Coast SUNS Chief Executive Mark Evans expressed his desire to provide Gold Coast based Members with an exciting football experience when footy returns to Metricon Stadium.

“After finishing the 2021 season with only one game out of the last nine at Metricon Stadium we are thrilled to be playing at home, in front of our members and fans four times in the first nine rounds,” Evans said.

“Off-field we’ll create our a fun, family-friendly match-day experience, mix that with an exciting brand of football on-field, our members and fans remember will remember just how good footy is on the Gold Coast.”

Hosting Victorian powerhouses provides the perfect opportunity for travelling fans to visit the Gold Coast and experience everything it has to offer.

“We know that we play an important role in helping the Gold Coast community and with interstate tourism limited over the past two years, we lobbied the AFL hard to ensure our fixture was also visitor friendly.

“We’ll work tirelessly to encourage the 392,000 members from those Victorian Clubs to follow their team, travel to the Gold Coast, stay in our accommodation, eat at our amazing local restaurants and cafes and visit our many tourist attractions before coming to Metricon Stadium to cheer them on.”

Round 6 against Brisbane in the 22^nd QClash, Round 14 v Adelaide and Round 20 v West Coast all at Metricon Stadium will a provide great opportunity for a young and exciting SUNS side to showcase they’ve taken the next steps on their journey towards a club’s inaugural finals campaign.

Round to RizeUp will take place against Fremantle in Round 9, as the club looks to grow the annual fixture, with an aim to help create awareness and educate the community around the prevention of domestic and family violence.

The club also confirmed earlier this week it would play two fixtures at TIO stadium in Darwin in 2022 after being unable to play there in 2021 due to Covid-19 restrictions.

“The partnership with Darwin is a really significant one for the football club from a talent development pathway point of view, but also commercially and unfortunately we were unable to host a game at TIO stadium in 2021.

“We’ve already seen the likes of Joel Jeffrey, Malcolm Rosas Jnr, Sandy Brock, Janet Baird and Ashanti Bush come through our development pathway, but the annual fixture provides the opportunity to inspire that next generation of talented footballers from the region.”

AFL Executive General Manager of Clubs and Broadcasting Travis Auld said the initial block of the fixture was constructed with the primary aim to achieve a strong start to the season with a series of key Thursday and Friday night matches to build momentum into the early part of the season.

“We begin season 2022 with a renewed level of confidence – taking the learnings of the previous year and focusing on delivering fans another blockbuster schedule of matches,” Mr Auld said.

“For supporters it is a chance to get back to doing what we all love, going to the footy with our family and friends.”

“The competitiveness and the ability for any team to win on any day gave us great confidence in the spread of marquee time slots to begin the season.”