GOLD Coast Suns are a young AFL Women’s side that has had to overcome a raft of injuries to experienced players, and while the mounting losses are “disappointing”, coach Rhyce Shaw said the group was taking plenty out of each match.

The most recent defeat was at the hands of Brisbane by a whopping 68 points at People First Stadium in Round 8, as the Suns only kicked one goal in each half, while the Lions – inaccurate at times – booted 11 majors from 28 scoring shots. After being competitive against Adelaide and even being on top heading into the last term three weeks ago, the Suns’ have gone down by a combined 155 points in the past fortnight.

“We’ve obviously been learning some lessons the last couple of weeks, but I think we showed our ability to adjust,” Shaw said. “We went in with a strong plan, we knew that we’d have to adapt at different stages and I thought we did that in that second half, especially in the third quarter.”

“Brisbane are just a really, really good team and I think we’re just not at that level quite yet and our players are learning what success looks like, and what really good teams look like, so that’s something we can take out of it. “We’re obviously disappointed with the result and the way we played for periods of the game, but we’re also making sure that we learn a lot from each and every moment that we get.”

Gold Coast lost 2.3 (15) to 11.17 (83), with the Lions able to convert a score from 56 per cent of their entires, while the Suns were also fairly efficient with five scoring shots from 19 inside 50s (26.3 per cent). When asked about what improvements the Suns needed to make in order to remain competitive against the top sides, Shaw said while it would be nice to limit the damage in the short-term by not exposing younger players to unfamiliar roles, he was more about setting the club up long-term.

“It’s hard because I love footy so I love watching good footy and two teams that have been playing really good footy,” he said. “I take a lot out of that and see where that standard is, and where that next level is, so that’s always got us thinking about ‘okay how do we fill that gap?’ and ‘what does that look like?’ and ‘how can we expose players to different roles that maybe they haven’t been in before to give them a look at what it means to play at that level and in those positions?’

“That’s something that we’re really conscious of and mindful of that we still give those girls those opportunities that we think we can provide them, but also we’re going into every game to try and win the game, so it’s a balancing act obviously.”

Shaw also reiterated that the Suns were “on a journey” and the key focus was on development. However while injuries have played a massive part in the results, Shaw said the positive to take from the high unavailability list was the emergence of some young guns who might not have otherwise had the opportunities.

“The most important thing is the players and their development and making sure we give them the opportunity and we’ve obviously been ravaged by injury this year and that’s played a part, but its also given us opportunities that we might not have had for Tara Harrington, for Mia Salisbury, for Ellie Veerhuis, players like that,” Shaw said.

“They’re getting great experience, and you can’t teach that stuff. “The stuff that they would have learnt over the last fortnight, you only get that by doing it, so hopefully they’ve learnt a lot of lessons, seeing things that they can implement in their game and hopefully that helps their development and helps their growth.”

Gold Coast has a stiff task travelling to take on Hawthorn this week, before having an easier last three rounds against fellow bottom six sides, Western Bulldogs, Collingwood and Richmond, with the last fortnight in particularly likely to decide the wooden spoon winner.