Stuart Dew will continue to focus on “fundamental stuff” as he tries to arrest a run of eight consecutive losses and a worrying inability to hit the scoreboard for his Gold Coast SUNS.

While the early signs were promising, and the SUNS led at the first break, they were held goalless during the second and third quarters and ultimately fell to a 53-point loss against Hawthorn in Launceston on Saturday afternoon.

With Tom Lynch and Peter Wright looking dangerous up front and Jarryd Lyons leading the way with four first-quarter clearances, the SUNS took it right up to the Hawks but just couldn’t stay with their more experienced opponents for long enough.

“I thought our contest was better, obviously on the back of last week,” Dew said.

“The boys put a fair bit of work into it, but obviously in the end we couldn’t sustain it on the outside.”

Dew lamented the wasteful 3.10 Gold Coast kicked from turnovers but seemed pleased with his players’ willingness to act on instinct as instructed by coaching staff.

“We’ve just encouraged them to play what they see a little bit more and, I think, not be so safe with the footy, in terms of just asking them to pull the trigger a little bit more and test the opposition.

“Even before the game, a couple in particular, we said to them if they don’t get caught holding the ball trying to take the game on, they’re not having a go, so we can’t crucify them for that.”

“We know that sometimes it leads to skill errors, but if we’re not taking chances with the ball then we’re really playing into opposition hands.

“We’re encouraging them to run and overlap and use the outnumber, then it’s our ability to sustain and keep executing under fatigue.”

Despite going goalless between quarter time and three-quarter time, the SUNS did eventually break the final quarter goal drought that has plagued them since round eight when Alex Sexton rolled one home midway through the final term.

“We should have had four or five, actually, so it makes a change from the weeks before. It was pleasing,” Dew said.

“We challenged them at three-quarter time and I think we had five or six shots at goal, so we ran the game out and continued to try and play the way we wanted to play.”

Key defender Sam Day left the ground during the final term with what appeared to be a painful shoulder injury but had assured his coach post-match that it may not have been as serious as it looked.

“He didn’t think it was too bad,” Dew said.

“He had a bit of an episode and he said he’s had one before, so he didn’t seem too bothered.”