Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick has indicated the Suns face some "tough calls" at the end of their 2024 campaign, which will again be without a finals appearance.
This year loomed as the club's best chance to reach September, with Hardwick at the helm and likely aided by a more comfortable fixture while his top line of players enter the peak of their careers.
Friday's trip to Perth to face a three-win West Coast side was the Suns' best chance to end their winless away record for the year, only for the Queensland outfit to concede the final three goals of the game and lose by 10 points.
The defeat could mean the Suns are mathematically out of the finals race by the end of the weekend, with Gold Coast currently tied to nine wins for the year i the same amount they won last year.
Yet to claim more than 10 wins in any of their 14 seasons in the AFL, Hardwick said the club faces some difficult decisions moving forward if it wants to reach the required standard.
"You've got to play the game a certain way. You've got to make sure you have a consistency in your performance and you've got to play a September brand of footy. We didn't tonight," Hardwick said post-game.
"The last couple of weeks it hasn't been to the level we'd like. "We have to sit there and make decisions on players. It's our job as coaches to help them or make them better or work on the development phase of that part of their game. We've also got to be better in critical moments and play our moments better.
"That's the disappointing thing from our point of view. When we have a chance to be stronger over the ball and get the ball going forward we just didn't get it done.
"It's on me to get us better. We will get better, but it's frustrating to come this far and play the way we did.
"Sometimes it's one step back to go two steps forward. So we're going to make some tough calls about what that September brand looks like.
"I don't deflect the fact that it's my job to get these guys up to speed. We've failed in that this year and we've got to make sure we get better."
The Suns will face Essendon, Melbourne and Richmond in their final three games of the season, with the opportunity for a club-best record still in reach.
Hardwick flagged the club's finish to the year has plenty to offer its players and fans, noting it as potentially "defining".
"It can be shattering or the next three weeks could be defining for what it looks like moving forward," he added.
"This is an all too familiar tale for our football club and we've got to change it.
"At the end of the day, our playing group, our coaches, our organisation has to stand up and say: 'Listen, let's get to work, we've got three weeks to turn something around'.
"We've never had a winning season. I think our max win (total) is 10, so let's work towards something. For our supporters who are hanging tough, we want to make sure we sit there and finish off the way we should finish the season off."
The Suns travel to Marvel Stadium next week to face the Bombers before returning to Carrara for their final home game of the season the week after against the Demons.
