TRUE BLUEY ... AFL with with Guy McKenna
BEHIND every good story at the Gold Coast SUNS is a good family story.
Our young 17-year-old West Australian product David Swallow is a perfect example of that.
He is the youngest player on our list and has been super for us this year.
We knew we were going to take him in our top three at this year's AFL national draft and wanted to get him to the Gold Coast a year early.
He and his family accepted the offer and that has enabled us to get him through aspects like homesickness and living away from home now instead of next year.
His football has been the bonus really and now because of that, he is legitimately ready to play at AFL level.
There are a lot of great stories at the Suns. Some of the Queensland talent like Charlie Dixon, Zac Smith and Marc Lock have been the standouts.
And then there is Rex Liddy who has signed a contract and now moved down to half-back where he has not missed a beat.
They are some of the great local stories of the boys who have been here for two years.
And there also some great stories from the 17-year-olds who we took in at the end of last year.
From Tasmania, Mav Weller has been terrific while Luke Russell had an indifferent start to the year but then started to pick up and play some good football.
Then from Western Australia we brought in Brandon Matera.
He is a sharpshooter and fearless for a player of his size.
And then of course there is Swallow, who I have mentioned.
This is certainly a lot to look forward to in the coming years.
Our strength and conditioning guru Andrew Weller put a plan in place two years ago but the boys still had to roll up the sleeves and stick to it.
The ones that have done that have gained the rewards.
Some boys haven't measured up and that's noticeable as well because maybe they didn't roll their sleeves up as high as they should have.
But ultimately I am really happy with the way the boys have progressed from Round 1 to here as well as their physical development.
The style of football has got better as the year has gone on.
The benefit of all this hard work and planning is the way the boys have finished off the VFL season.
That was our main focus when we sat down as a group a month ago.
We knew we were still in the hunt for finals and we knew we were good enough to play in them but whether we were ready for them was debatable.
So I couldn't be happier with how we have finished off even though finals footy has escaped us.
For the last game of the year we head down to face Collingwood at Victoria Park and it will be tough.
We will have to be at our best and as I said to the boys yesterday, our best is what I want to see.
