By Jacob Kagi
 

Gold Coast coach Guy McKenna believes his side's injury issues cost it any chance of winning against Fremantle at Patersons Stadium on Saturday.

The GC SUNS were gallant for much of the match - led by captain Gary Ablett, who had 20 kicks, 14 handballs, 14 tackles and three goals – and held the lead as late as the third quarter.

But they conceded nine of the last 10 goals to lose by 50 points and suffer their seventh straight loss.

McKenna said a knee injury to Sam Day, which is likely to rule him out for "at least two or three weeks", as well as issues with Zac Smith (head) and Sam Iles (foot) all took a toll on his young side.

"When the troops were up and about, we certainly did our best. Up to half-time we certainly had a crack. We moved the ball the way we wanted to," McKenna said.

"But with such a young group, when we lose even one player, let alone three, things are going to turn nasty and they certainly did in the second half.

"To lose a ruckman, which pushes Josh Fraser to the brink when he's got a crook foot himself, isn't helpful.

"Then obviously Sam Day up front and a couple of the other boys went down, so to basically have no interchange in the last quarter certainly made things a bit harder."

McKenna said Smith and Iles should both be fine for next week's game against Sydney, where he said he was likely to continue to rotate his selections.

"The idea is not to get them when they're over the hill. It's trying to get them before they get to that point," he said.

"I reckon we erred in the case of Brandon Matera and Trent McKenzie, so I'm very keen not to go down that path again."

Gold Coast's cause against Fremantle was also hindered by an illness to key defender Nathan Bock.

Bock did an effective job on Matthew Pavlich for the majority of the day, but was forced off the ground at the start of the second quarter and the Fremantle captain took advantage, kicking three goals in six minutes.

"He obviously had something bad for breakfast, which didn't agree with him," McKenna said.

"He had to go off and relieve himself a few times, which wasn't great because I thought he was doing a really good job on Pav. But when nature calls, nature calls."

McKenna's decision to substitute a healthy Daniel Gorringe for Brandon Matera also affected the GC SUNSrotations as their injury issues hit soon after, but the coach said he felt his side needed to make the change to add more pace to their forward line.