By Michael Whiting

Gold Coast SUNS coach Guy McKenna believes an increased use of the interchange bench will help to develop his young side.

The GC SUNS inability to run out matches this season - as evidenced by second-half collapses against Carlton, Melbourne, Adelaide and Geelong - has largely been attributed to the developing bodies on its first-year list.

While McKenna has acknowledged the GC SUNS youth as a reason for the late-game fadeouts all season, he said increasing the rotations off the interchange bench would also help.

The GC SUNS made a concerted effort to use their bench more readily in last Saturday's 18-point loss to West Coast, and the visitors managed to outscore the Eagles over the last three quarters of the match.

"We looked at the Geelong game (where the GC SUNS conceded the final 11 goals of the match) and we rotated 98 times and they rotated 130 times," McKenna said.

"We got that up to 116 on the weekend. We still need to get that up. I see the younger sides are rotating less. Is that an education thing? I think so, to a degree.

"We need to encourage our boys to rotate more because if we are young as far as our energy goes or our ability to get through a game, we need to do more of it rather than less. We're learning that as we go along."

Despite the quality showing against the competition's big improvers this season, McKenna was left to rue the slow start by his side in the first quarter.

The opening 10 minutes - where the GC SUNS conceded six goals - cost McKenna's side dearly, and the GC SUNS coach said playing at Patersons Stadium was hard enough without giving the home side a significant head start.

"After that we kicked 10 goals (and) they kicked seven, but they're talking about winning the game and we're talking about losing the game," he said.

"The boys should be pleased but not proud of that effort.

"They whacked us out of the centre, and once we competed in that area and around the ground you start to control the game."

McKenna said he expected nothing short of a rugged challenge when North Melbourne comes to Metricon Stadium on Saturday night.

He said the Kangaroos had lifted for Brent Harvey's 311th match against Adelaide on Sunday - equaling the club record held by Glen Archer - and Gold Coast would be foolish to think they would give anything less when he breaks Archer's mark this weekend.