NORMALLY measured and with a greater sense of optimism compared to pessimism, Gold Coast Suns coach Rhyce Shaw cut a forlorn figure after his side suffered a 66-point loss to the Western Bulldogs in Mackay, held goalless with just six behinds to the home side’s name.

The emotion was clear for all to see when asked about his immediate reaction to the 10.12 (72) to 0.6 (6) loss in Mackay, post-game.

“That one’s one we can’t accept,” he said. “That’s not up to standard. “We know that it’s not, we can’t sugar coat it. “It’s not good enough.”

Statistically, aside from the inside 50 count (42-27), it was most the defensive pressure that gave an insight into the performance. Despite controlling possession for the game, the Bulldogs laid 57 tackles to the Suns’ 35, while also being smacked in the contested possession by 23 (120-97). It lead Shaw to lament his side’s lack of “fight”.

“We’ve spoken a lot about that kind of stuff and against Hawthorn I thought we did a pretty good job even though we did lose the game, we were competitive,” Shaw said. “We showed how we wanted to play, and we actually fought.

“Tonight we didn’t do that and that’s really disappointing. “No matter what is going on and no matter how many losses or poor performances you have, you’ve got to rock up and we just didn’t do that in numbers tonight. “Like we had a couple, maybe a handful, but that’s about it, and that doesn’t cut it at W level.”

Shaw was “at a bit of a loss” for what his team needed to do, because he had not noticed anything startling in the lead-up to the match that might suggest a performance of that magnitude.

“I thought we set the week up really well, we knew what was coming and we knew what we had to bring and we just didn’t make decisions to compete I think, and it’s really simple if you don’t compete and you don’t compete consistently, you get found out and we got found out,” Shaw said.

Gold Coast finishes the year with the other bottom three sides, starting with a home match against 17th placed Collingwood in what is a bottom two battle. A loss will guarantee the Suns the wooden spoon, while back-to-back wins to end the season would likely see them leapfrog the Magpies at least.

Despite Collingwood being the closest side to the Suns in terms of ladder positioning, Shaw pointed out that if the Suns produce a performance like they did against the Bulldogs then it is irrelevant of the opposition.

“Right now I’m at a bit of a loss but we know what we need to do,” Shaw said. “It’s about being able to do that and produce that for long periods of time and if we don’t do that, then well it doesn’t matter who we play really.

“We’ve shown we can take Adelaide for three quarters, we can match it with Hawthorn, but then we have a game like this and that just shows our probably immaturity at points, and also inconsistency.”