GOLD Coast AFLW coach Rhyce Shaw conceded he could not “sugarcoat” a damning 82-point loss to Sydney in front of a home crowd as the early season form went from bad to worse for last year’s 17th placed side. The Suns lost 15.13 (103) to 3.3 (21) as Swans star Chloe Molloy booted an individual record-equalling seven goals in the most comprehensive one-sided display across the opening fortnight.

“Disappointed’s probably a good word,” Shaw said post-game. “Getting beaten by what you know is really hard. Full credit do them, they’re a really good football team, they’re going to do a lot of damage this year. “Really well drilled, really impressive.

“For our girls, some lessons there for us I think. Because you shouldn’t sugarcoat these ones, but you’ve got to learn from them, especially in a W season, you’ve got to move on pretty quickly, but we’ll definitely learn from this one.”

The statistics do not make for pretty reading if you are a Suns fan. When asked post-match what the biggest lessons to come out of the match were, Shaw said “there were a few out there.”

“I keep saying that the game gives you feedback, and getting done in the contested possession count by that much isn’t a great stat because the game starts 50/50 and then it’s whoever makes the most of it and we just weren’t able to that,” he said.

“We weren’t able to win our contests, even when we did we probably didn’t make the most of it in terms of we didn’t hold onto the footy, we didn’t get over and support and Sydney were able to just work over and outnumber and then take us to town a bit. It’s disappointing, it is, with this stuff, with our team, we gotta learn, we’ve got to continue to learn.”

When it comes to the outnumbering element, Shaw said it was “probably a combination of both” work rate and lack of personnel. The Suns have eight players on their injury list, and have already utilised their couple of top-up talents this season. Despite that, Shaw said the Suns were still showing positive signs, but just not able to do it consistently.

“I feel as though we’re probably in a position where we don’t understand our capability and I think we’ve seen patches of it, and I think even in the first five to 10 minutes of that third quarter, we showed that we’re very much capable,” Shaw said.

“We won the contested possessions in the third quarter, we won inside 50s in the third quarter would you believe? We’re more than capable, it’s about being consistent with it. People stepping up at the right times and making the most of their moments. We were obviously inconsistent with that today, but all I know is our players are more capable than what they showed today and we need to go to work on that, and learn these lessons and get on with it really quickly.”

Gold Coast has the opportunity to break its winless start to the season when it treks over to Adelaide to face the Power in a bottom two battle as both sides search for their first victory of the season at Alberton Oval on Saturday night.