By Michael Whiting
 

Gold Coast SUNS have continued its policy of throwing young players into the deep end, with debutant Taylor Hine likely to be given the assignment on Norm Smith medallist Andrew Embley on Saturday.

Hine will be the 24th GC SUNS player to make his debut this season when Gold Coast travel to Patersons Stadium to play West Coast, and coach Guy McKenna has set him a difficult assignment.

He's not the first one though, with Matt Shaw following Melbourne's Aaron Davey in his first match, while rugby league convert Karmichael Hunt marked Barry Hall and Daniel Motlop in his first month.

GC SUNS assistant coach Dean Solomon said with Hunt out suspended, the 184cm, 75kg Hine deserved his spot.

"It's quite exciting and we're going to throw a big challenge out to Taylor with one of their game-breakers," he said.

"We're not bringing him into the side to hide him or anything, he's had a really good month of footy and proved he deserves a game.

"Whether it be Embley or (Mark) Lecras, one of their good players. As I said to Taylor, when you play your first game you can make a mistake… so take the shackles off and enjoy the moment for what it is and embrace that challenge and have a bit of fun.

"We're not going to hide our kids, we're going to see what they're made of."

Hine is one of four new faces for the match against the Eagles, with Harley Bennell, Josh Fraser and Seb Tape returning at the expense of Hunt, Brandon Matera (groin), Charlie Dixon and Dion Prestia.

Hine said he was pumped for his first match and was ecstatic when Solomon gave him the good news.

"He said 'you feeling good enough to play on Andrew Embley?' And I said 'yeah yeah for sure'. I was pretty excited," Hine said.

"He's obviously in real good form so I'm just excited to get a go."

Hine said he had worked hard to bulk up his light frame and continued to put in plenty of hours on his kicking skills.

Solomon said defeating the seventh-placed Eagles would be a huge challenge after their rapid improvement this season.

He said their frontal pressure and forward press were terrific and they had a great understanding between one another.

"It's going to be interesting to see what we do against that. Subi is a reasonably skinny oval so you can zone it quite well and it's a great challenge for our young group to see if we can penetrate that zone," he said.

"There's no doubt we've got a young, quick side so we want to get the ball into our hands and take the game on and break zones. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and that's all part of the learning experience in the first 12 months."