AFL.com.au's Queensland reporter Michael Whiting travelled with Gold Coast to Perth for its elimination final in what would prove a memorable 48 hours
TWELVE hours after the greatest win in club history, Gold Coast was back on the tools preparing for its next final.
Well, the coaches were at any rate.
Players and staff filtered into the Virgin Lounge at Perth Airport at 8.30am on Sunday, bleary eyed, but full of smiles following the previous night's fairytale elimination final win over Fremantle.
CEO Mark Evans was so wired he didn't get to sleep until 5am. Ben Long had hardly slept. Brayden Fiorini the same.
But with half an hour to see off before boarding the longest trip in the country back to Coolangatta on the team's charter flight, assistant coach Josh Drummond was already back at work.
Drummond was coding the match, preparing notes for his defensive unit ahead of facing Brisbane at the Gabba next Saturday night.
He had time to reflect on Bodhi Uwland's intercept mark on centre wing that led to Mac Andrew's game-tying goal in the dying seconds.
All night Gold Coast defenders had been encouraged to spoil the ball and keep it from getting over the back for the Dockers' dangerous smalls to latch on to. Now they were in 'win the game' mode, and Uwland flew high to take the game's most important mark.
But while Drummond, Shaun Grigg, Damien Hardwick and the rest of the coaching staff began reviewing the game, the players were still given a license to acknowledge what they'd accomplished.
This flight would be fun. Rather than dreading the long haul after a season-ending loss, the club now had a chance to exchange stories about the best two-and-a-half hours in their football lives.
Touk Miller, Lachie Weller and Alex Davies gathered around a screen to watch extended highlights of the win, served drinks by the airline crew staff that sported the Suns' 'All Gas No Brakes' finals themed shirts.
"Back in the day you had to switch straight back on, but it makes no sense," football manager Wayne Campbell told AFL.com.au about an hour into the return leg.
"You need to be able to unwind. You need to decompress. You need to enjoy it. It's a really hard game."
It wasn't just a really hard game, it was an emotional one for the Suns. Fifteen years of waiting to play their first final, making the flight west to play Fremantle in front of a partisan crowd, and ultimately returning victors.
AFL.com.au was fortunate enough to travel with Gold Coast for what would prove a memorable 48 hours.
The hit-and-run mission began on Friday morning, with the club accessing a charter flight out of its local airport at 9.30am.
This charter flight might seem a small detail, but one the club believes was truly valuable in helping it perform to its best.
Flying east to west, the journey was a lengthy five hours and 47 minutes. It's usually so much longer though.
There are no commercial flights from Gold Coast to Perth, which meant in round one, and any other time the Suns head to Western Australia, they drive to Brisbane for the direct flight.
It might seem small on the surface, a 90-minute drive, but added to players assembling at the club's Carrara headquarters first, getting on a bus, and then factoring traffic for the drive north, it turns an eight-hour travel day, door-to-door, into an arduous 10 or 11-hour ordeal.
The return trip is often done on an overnight flight commercially, followed by the 90-minute drive from Brisbane to the Gold Coast. Ouch.
Equally, it's the comfort of having your own plane. Players can spread out. Some had an entire row to themselves.
You can get up and down when you like. Davies and Ned Moyle were on their feet 20 minutes into the flight. Fiorini paced the aisle like he patrols the outer wing on game day.
There's a level of comfort, physically and mentally - everyone knows everyone on the flight - that seems to hasten the trip. Almost six hours is almost six hours though.
List manager Craig Cameron has the laptop out and is in full work mode. "It's a busy time of year, mate," he grinned ahead of the looming trade and free agency period.
Chairman Bob East had a couple of books to pass the time. So do dynamic duo Noah Anderson and Matt Rowell. Grigg latched on to the on-board wifi, keen to watch Philadelphia and Dallas in the opening round of the NFL.
Young star Bailey Humphrey took a row of seats to sleep.
The players were greeted by heavy rain on arrival in Perth and headed straight to Optus Stadium for their captain's run.
Their dressing-room was already set-up, with property stewards flying 24 hours earlier. Again, 'All Gas No Brakes' was emblazoned on the walls.
The big digital clock in the room remained on Queensland time, two hours ahead of the local WA time. It's something the club continued for the weekend, in an attempt to keep their body clocks in sync.
There's a couple of hundred eager fans greeting the players as they enter the wet playing surface. Greg Broughton, who was at Carrara from 2013 to 2015, hangs over the fence and yells out to long-term head physio Lindsay Bull, who started at the club at the same time as the West Australian and is one of many long-term staff members that have longed for the team's first finals appearance.
David Swallow is the centre of attention. His wife Georgia and children Charlie and Lucy had also flown over a day early and are there with other Swallow family members based in Perth.
Charlie, seven, is running around on the field having a great time. After the light, leg-stretching session, Swallow is caught up with his family and misses the team bus to the team's CBD hotel.
Instead, he jumps in with some staff in a mini-bus, shaking his head in amazement at what the week has brought him. From announcing his retirement, to being named in the team, and now preparing to play a first final. Swallow has played 247 games at a record 22 venues, but this week already takes the cake.
"It's been really special. People have just been so nice to me." If only he knew what was to come.
By the time they reach the team hotel at around 4.30pm local time (6.30pm Queensland time), it had already been a solid day and time to prepare for dinner.
Game day is pretty routine on the road. Players are up early.
Rowell, Anderson, Ben King, Jake Rogers and Davies are all out about an hour before the official team walk to go searching for a coffee in the CBD.
There's still 10 hours until the first bounce and the team like to keep the legs moving early in the day.
After the team walk, they have lunch and gather around to watch part of Gold Coast's AFLW team's first win of 2025 against Greater Western Sydney at People First Stadium.
Soon, it would be their turn to create a 'first'.
Unable to do a pre-game function for its members, Gold Coast encouraged fans to get to The Merrywell pub prior to the game and join some of its staff and board members to walk the 1km to Optus Stadium 90 minutes before the bounce.
At the ground, there was a bay of 1700 Suns fans - who even started up an audible 'Gold Coast' chant following Jy Farrar's goal to open the fourth term - along with a cheersquad group behind the goals.
Throw in some corporate suites for Swallow's family and friends and there was nearly 2000 among the 57,500 fans wearing the red, gold and blue.
But the real memories would come post-match.
Gold Coast's dressing-room was understandable mayhem. So many people had waited so long. No.1 ticket holder Bruce Coulson bear-hugged Wil Powell and Ben Ainsworth as they walked down the race into the rooms.
Powell, a West Australian, had 48 friends and family in the stands.
"It's a baptism of fire really, isn't it? You come to Perth in front of 60,000 hostile, loyal supporters. It doesn't get much better than that," he beamed, unable to hide his unbridled joy.
One or both parents of Rowell, Anderson, King, Ainsworth, Uwland, Jarrod Witts, and so many more, were all there to celebrate with their sons.
Russell Jeffrey, the father of Joel who played for both St Kilda and the Brisbane Bears was overwhelmed with excitement. "How bloody good was that."
Brandon Matera, who played for both clubs and had admitted he was sitting on the fence with friends in both camps, said he let out a "come on, Suns" alongside his family as Gold Coast trailed late in the match.
"Composure was our focus," Joel Jeffrey said. "The noise is always going to be there. We just said when we have the footy, to be composed, knowing we've got the brothers around us to give it to."
That backline synergy was obvious in the dying stages and a testament to the familiarity they've been on and off the field.
"The connection. You play that long with your mates beside you, you earn that trust and that trust is so hard to break. It's not going to break any time soon," Powell added.
But, like it had been for much of the week, it was all about Swallow. Hugged by everyone that walked past him from trainers to teammates to board members, his match-winning point and the adulation post-match will be the enduring memory for all.
"It's hard to put into words what he means to the club," Campbell said.
'As much as your try and Mark's spoken really well and Dimma's spoken really well and Wittsy's spoken really well ... it's hyperbolic to say if he left as well (as other players in the mid-2010s) the club doesn't exist, but if he goes on top of the guys that already went, does it set the club back 15 years and not 10?
"The game doesn't often give you what you deserve, but for us to win, then you have the Dave moment, it was just cool."
'Just' four hours back, thank goodness for the west to east tailwind, and with the flight landing at Coolangatta, most players would have been home between 4-5pm, ahead of a Monday off and preparations for the biggest QClash in history.