Despite outscoring West Coast after quarter-time, Gold Coast SUNS coach Guy McKenna is not letting his players off the hook, labelling the opening to the match "unacceptable".

The GC SUNS were stunned early as West Coast kicked six goals in just over 14 minutes in an opening eerily similar to the record-breaking round-six loss to Essendon.

However, Gold Coast SUNS steadied and was arguably the better team after quarter-time despite the 18-point loss.

Gold Coast SUNS kicked 10 goals to seven after West Coast opened up a 37-0 advantage midway through the first quarter and led both inside 50s (47-45) and contested possessions (150-142) at full-time.

Despite the stats, McKenna said they couldn’t gloss over his team’s start.

"That 10 minutes is unacceptable and if they jumped us again and give us another 10 minutes of that then we were in a world of pain, so it was more just about getting back to what we understood," McKenna said.

"You can't give a home side like that a five-goal head start. I can't fault the character of the boys and the development in them. Against a side that hadn’t lost last week we played 70 or 80 minutes of decent footy, and this week you could say we played 110 minutes of footy but 120 is what we need.

"You scratch your head about the first 10 minutes, but to come back was good against a side that two weeks ago murdered the Western Bulldogs.

“It was a pleasing result, but let's not be happy with it."

Gold Coast SUNS defence was undersized against the likes of Josh Kennedy, Quinten Lynch, Jack Darling and either Dean Cox or Nic Naitanui from West Coast, but McKenna singled out defender Campbell Brown for praise.

"Campbell naturally [puts his body on the line] and that's why he is playing up at the Gold Coast because we want him to do that," he said.

"Certainly Browny put his hand up and he needed to. He has come up off suspension and has had to find his feet. We'll cut him a bit of slack to find that ability to run out a game, but he certainly paid us back a bit today."

McKenna is now has his sights set on Saturday night's clash at Metricon Stadium against North Melbourne as he looks to build the GC SUNS new home ground into a fortress.

"It's a home ground and we took a step against Geelong in the opening of our stadium and I would hope that the boys can go out with a passion to defend their turf," McKenna said.

"It's our stadium, our ground and we want to bring that intensity to play next week and that's regardless if it's against North Melbourne, Collingwood, St Kilda or Geelong.

“We have to make sure we are ready to go next week."