GOLD Coast has solicited the help of the crosstown rugby league Titans to address its tackling woes.
The National Rugby League outfit turned up at Carrara on Tuesday morning to take the Suns through their paces on tackling technique, in a collaboration that was organised a month ago.
And it could not have been more timely for the Suns following Saturday night’s loss to Collingwood, in which they were outtackled 75-43.
It continued a horrible season for Damien Hardwick's men in that category. Gold Coast is ranked dead last for tackle differential, losing the metric by 12.6 a game.
The next worse is West Coast at minus 6.3.
Leadership group member Wil Powell said the "pressure and intent" that defined the Suns in 2025 had not been there through the current six match losing streak.
"They (Collingwood) stuck their tackles, we didn't," Powell said.
"In and under pressure, low pressure versus high pressure situations, they handled them much better,
"That's a massive focus for us, our intent and getting after the oppo.
"I think that’s something we've lacked from last year and is going away from our identity.
"We need to get back to that as soon as possible and when we’re back to that we’ll be playing our best footy again."
Touk Miller was responsible for 10 of his team's 43 tackles against the Magpies, with 15 players registering either one or zero.
This compared to Collingwood, who had just seven players laying one or zero tackles.
Powell conceded Gold Coast's leadership group of Noah Anderson, Miller, Sam Collins, Matt Rowell, Ben King and himself had to play better.
"As leaders, that’s on us. We've been very hard on each other in the leadership meetings. The coaches expect more from us and we expect more from each other," he said.
"There's still so much to salvage from this season. There's still seven more weeks, we've still got wildcard and finals in reach, it's just up to us to get it done."
