Hours after the completion of the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony in April, trucks rolled into Metricon Stadium to start reforming it into an AFL venue.
Dismantling a temporary stand, lighting and other fit-outs for the Games' main arena took three days before the arduous task of digging up the tartan track and re-laying the turf began.
A little over five weeks later, and Gold Coast and Geelong will run out on Saturday afternoon to a pristine surface that looks every bit as good as it did before the Games.
In the midst of the organised chaos of refitting the stadium, the track was removed and distributed to local schools and other community facilities.
Then, upwards of 400 tonnes of sand was laid to help the resurfacing.
While all this happened, two hours north of Carrara on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, HG Sports Turf was busy preparing the turf that would be laid, ready to play at Metricon on May 8.
The company is well known in AFL circles having surfaced the MCG and Perth's new Optus Stadium among a host of other projects.
The re-laying process took nine days in total with another two weeks for it to settle before the Suns had their first training run on Wednesday.
Captain Tom Lynch and one of his deputies David Swallow both left the field sporting big smiles saying they were delighted how well the grass had knitted.
For the SUNS, preparation for the project went back to last September when they handed over the keys to Metricon Stadium to the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games Corporation.
They officially received them back this week.
In the meantime, Gold Coast switched home bases to nearby Bond University where the football department and administration staff set up home for eight weeks.
They returned to Carrara in late April and resumed on an adjacent training field while the finishing touches were being put on the main stadium.
In his weekly press conference on Wednesday, excited coach Stuart Dew said the ground "almost looks too good to play on", but on Saturday that's exactly what his team will do.
