\n<\/p>\n
Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick has declared his club will no longer be stomped on or forgotten after beating Fremantle in dramatic fashion to set up a blockbuster Q-Clash semi-final.<\/p>\n
The Suns blew a 26-point lead against the Dockers on Saturday night but managed to regain their composure in the dying minutes to seal a famous one-point elimination final win at Optus Stadium.<\/p>\n
Suns defender Mac Andrew drifted forward to kick the game-tying goal with just 72 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
Then the retiring David Swallow kicked the match-winning behind from a 50m set shot with just nine seconds left on the clock after being tackled without the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I didn\u2019t think I had the legs in me. But I managed to get there,\u201d an elated Swallow told Fox Footy after his kick sealed the 11.14 (80) to 12.7 (79) win.<\/p>\n
Gold Coast have been a laughing stock for much of their 15-year history. Not anymore, with Hardwick turning the Suns into a formidable, battle-hardened unit capable of beating the competition\u2019s elite sides.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite a special win \u2013 I\u2019ve never won an elimination final actually. That\u2019s one of the things I ticked off my little list,\u201d said Hardwick, who led Richmond to three flags.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey [Gold Coast\u2019s players] have changed the narrative of this playing group, which is so important.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, we\u2019ve been a club that\u2019s been \u2013 I don\u2019t want to say ridiculed \u2013 but stomped on, forgotten, and all of a sudden the narrative has changed. We\u2019re very proud of what they\u2019ve done thus far.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gold Coast\u2019s next challenge is taking on a banged-up Brisbane outfit who are licking their wounds following Friday night\u2019s 38-point qualifying final loss to Geelong.<\/p>\n
Star Lions midfielder Lachie Neale pinged his calf late in that game and has been ruled out for the rest of the season, and forward Eric Hipwood (knee) also won\u2019t feature again in 2025.<\/p>\n
Gold Coast thumped Brisbane by 66 points six weeks ago, but that was on home comforts at People First Stadium.<\/p>\n
Saturday night\u2019s semi-final will be played at the Gabba \u2013 a venue where Gold Coast have lost 10 straight games, including losses to Collingwood, Richmond and Melbourne during the COVID-affected seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some stage, little brother has got to step up and take them on on their home deck,\u201d Hardwick said.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to From the Pocket: AFL Weekly<\/span><\/p>\n Jonathan Horn brings expert analysis on the week’s biggest AFL stories<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cSo we look forward to that challenge. We\u2019ve managed to knock a few things over this year that we haven\u2019t achieved thus far \u2013 a victory here [in Perth] is one of those, and a victory at the Gabba would be incredibly nice.<\/p>\n \u201cBut what we do know, Brisbane are a very proud side, so well coached, well drilled.\u201d<\/p>\n Brisbane lead the overall Q-Clash head-to-head record 21-8, but the stakes have never been this high.<\/p>\n Hardwick is urging his team to embrace the challenge, and he wants Suns fans to flood to the Gabba.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019d be the biggest game in the history of south-east Queensland, I would imagine, so scalpers will be going crazy with ticket sales and all that sort of stuff,\u201d Hardwick said.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully we can get as many Suns people there as we can. I think this group has only started our journey really. It\u2019s been 15 years of hard work, and we\u2019ve managed to make the finals, first and foremost.<\/p>\n \u201cBut to have our first victory in a final is incredibly rewarding. Now we get the great challenge of trying to beat Brisbane on their home patch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick has declared his club will no longer be stomped on or forgotten after beating Fremantle in dramatic fashion to set up a blockbuster Q-Clash semi-final. The Suns blew a 26-point lead against the Dockers on Saturday night but managed to regain their composure in the dying minutes to seal a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[3709,12027,5302,3223,3710,129,12029,12026,12028,286],"class_list":{"0":"post-19614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-brisbane","10":"tag-brother","11":"tag-coach","12":"tag-coast","13":"tag-gold","14":"tag-hardwick","15":"tag-knock","16":"tag-perch","17":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}