It is a beautiful part of football these days that after a win the players will gather in a circle in the dressing rooms and sing the club song loud and strong. And, just as Daniel Rioli and John Noble did in Perth on Sunday night, first-time winners with the club will be pushed into the middle.

It was especially loud after the SUNS posted a statement win by a club record 87 points over the West Coast Eagles at Optus Stadium.

After all, it was just the club’s fourth win in 20 trips to the West Australian capital.

But if they’d extended the group in the middle of the circle to first-time winners in Perth, almost half the team would have been included.

Connor Budarick, Sam Clohesy, Will Graham, Joel Jeffrey, Ethan Read, Jake Rogers and Bodhi Uwland all had their first win in the WA capital in a win that will be long remembered by SUNS fans.

This was after Rogers kicked a career-best three goals and Read an equal career-best two goals.

If the goal kicking exploits of Rogers and Reid were to be celebrated, Ben King, Ben Long and Touk Miller should have been in the middle of the circle, too, after personal-best hauls.

King kicked six to join Tom Lynch, Charlie Dixon, Alex Sexton, Harley Bennell and Brandon Matera as the only SUNS players to have kicked six or more goals in a game for the club.

King’s eight marks inside 50 against the Eagles, including his early nomination for Mark of the Year over the top of the Eagles’ Harry Edwards, was also a club record, bettering the seven of Lynch (twice) in 2016 and Levi Casboult in 2022.

Long booted an equal career-best four goals, giving him 30 goals in his last 17 games since his move forward last season.

And Miller, not a renowned goal-kicker, was a multiple goal-kicker for just the seventh time in 192 games to go with 26 possessions (17 contested) and 10 clearances.

If consistently outstanding form against the Eagles in Perth is any sort of criteria then Matt Rowell would have to be in the middle of the circle too.

Having polled three Brownlow Medal votes in each of his last three games against West Coast at Optus Stadium, Rowell put himself in the mix for more votes with a powerhouse 30 possessions, eight tackles and 10 clearances.

And on the basis that you can’t have Rowell without his ‘other half’, Noah Anderson needs to be there too after he marked his first game as SUNS captain with 36 possessions – his fifth-highest possession count in his 105^th game.

Likewise, it’s hard to exclude ex-captain Jarrod Witts, who had a whopping 68 hit-outs. This was second-best in his 182 games – behind only his 69 hit-outs in a home loss to GWS in 2019, which is the club record.

And, with 13 possessions, four tackles and five clearances, it saw Witts pick up the maximum 10 votes in the coaches votes from Anderson (8), Rowell (5), Miller (4), King (2) and Bailey Humphrey (1).

The 87-point win bettered the club’s previous biggest win of 86 points against Hawthorn at People First Stadium in 2017, when only Miller, Sexton and Witts of Sunday’s side played.

The SUNS’ 36 scoring shots – 20.16 – was the equal second-most in club history behind only the 2013 win over GWS in Canberra, when they had 43 scoring shots and kicked 21.22.

And it topped the club’s previous biggest interstate win of 70 points against West Coast in Perth in 2023.

The SUNS score of 20.16 (136) was the sixth-highest in club history, and the defensive effort to hold the home side to 7.7 (49) was the 13^th time overall they’ve kept an opposition side below 50 points, and just the fifth time outside Queensland.