Saturday’s only AFL Round 11 match is between Gold Coast Suns and North Melbourne Kangaroos. The opening bounce is set to commence at 7:40pm local time with the game to be played at Metricon Stadium. The away team North Melbourne Kangaroos are the favourites for the match. View our preview and teams for the game between Gold Coast Suns and North Melbourne Kangaroos.

Round: Round 11 7:40 PM June 08, 2013
Stadium: Metricon Stadium
Weather: 23° A few showers

Featured Bookmakers:

Gold Coast Suns $3.20 vs North Melbourne Kangaroos $1.35 at Sportsbet Australia get a $500 FREE BET on this match

Gold Coast Suns $3.35 vs North Melbourne Kangaroos $1.34 at Luxbet Australia get a $500 FREE BET on this match

Odds Comparison by AFL Odds:

Gold Coast Suns	3.20	3.30	3.35	3.30	3.20	3.22
North Melbourne Kangaroos	1.35	1.33	1.34	1.33	1.35	1.36

Preview:

Who would have thought at the start of the year that, ten rounds into the competition, these two sides will both boast a record of 4-6.

The Gold Coast has secured two of their wins in the past month, defeating Melbourne and Western Bulldogs and depsite losing their most recent clashes against Hawthorn and Geelong, the Suns have led well into second half of both matches and forced the competition front-runners, to dig deep and find their best.

These efforts – both away from home, will have the Suns full of confidence as they return home where they have won two from five games.

It has been well documented that North, have lost four of their matches by less than a kick and in a couple of these games, right at the death.

However, they were keen to prove that they had taken no ill effect by these losses, including a one point loss to Adelaide in round 9, by dominating St. Kilda from the bounce and running away with it in the end, winning by 68 points.

They’ll be out to produce a repeat performance here.

The two sides have only met three times previously, North having won each clash however, last year’s encounter resulted in North having to produce their best to hold the Suns off 87-80.

Teams:

Gold Coast Suns:
B: Trent McKenzie, Sam Day, Joel Wilkinson
HB: David Swallow, Rory Thompson, Tom Murphy
C: Matt Shaw, Gary Ablett, Jarrod Harbrow
HF: Liam Patrick, Tom Lynch, Aaron Hall
F: Campbell Brown, Timmy Sumner, Charlie Dixon
Foll: Tom Nicholls, Danny Stanley, Dion Prestia
Int: Jack Hutchins, Michael Rischitelli, Luke Russell, Jaeger O’Meara
Emerg: Jared Brennan, Greg Broughton, Daniel Gorringe

In: L.Patrick, C.Dixon, J.Hutchins
Out: K.Horsley, B.Matera (ankle), D.Gorringe

North Melbourne Kangaroos:
B: Lachlan Hansen, Scott D. Thompson, Scott McMahon
HB: Daniel Wells, Nathan Grima, Michael Firrito
C: Sam Gibson, Shaun Atley, Jamie Macmillan
HF: Sam Wright, Drew Petrie, Brent Harvey
F: Lindsay Thomas, Aaron Black, Leigh Adams
Foll: Todd Goldstein, Andrew Swallow, Ryan Bastinac
Int: Ben Cunnington, Aaron Mullett, Taylor Hine, Majak Daw
Emerg: Will Sierakowski, Liam Anthony, Brad McKenzie

In: M.Daw
Out: W.Sierakowski

AFL Kangaroos wary of Gold Coast’s talent

North Melbourne AFL coach Brad Scott doesn’t need any inside word from Geelong coach Chris Scott to know beating Gold Coast will be a tough assignment on Saturday night.

The North coach says even if he rang his twin brother for some feedback on Geelong’s win over Gold Coast last week: “I don’t know if he’d tell me.”

But the facts are clear. Third-year club Gold Coast are 13th on the ladder with a 4-6 win-loss record, one spot below North (4-6).

Gold Coast were thumped by 52 points by the second-placed Cats last weekend at Geelong’s Simonds Stadium, but only after scores were level at three-quarter time.

And in the previous round, the Suns only went down by 26 points at the MCG to Hawthorn.

“They’ve pushed the best two teams in the competition,” Brad Scott told reporters on Wednesday.

“It’s going to be a huge challenge.

“As the football world have anticipated, the away game at Metricon from this point on is going to be extremely difficult.

“They’re only going to get better and better, the Gold Coast. They look like they believe in their ability and they’ve certainly got plenty of it.”

North’s finals hopes hinge partly on being able to turn at the mid-point of the season at 5-6 before next week’s bye.

“Our guys know the importance of this game,” Scott said.

The Kangaroos are keen to introduce more tall timber to stretch Gold Coast’s defence.

“We’ll certainly be looking at getting Majak Daw back in our side as soon as possible,” Scott said of the Sudanese-born big man.

“He responded really well to going back. He looked like an AFL player playing at VFL level.

“A lot of their key defenders are quite young.

“The opportunity to potentially stretch some of their key defenders is certainly enticing for us.

“(Aaron) Black and (Drew) Petrie were good last week (with nine goals between them) and we’d like to give them some additional support.”

However Scott admits finding a suitable match-up for Brownlow Medal favourite Gary Ablett is keeping him awake at night.

Scott joked the best way to limit Ablett’s influence would be block his car so he couldn’t get from the stadium’s car park to the change rooms.

“He’s the best player in the competition,” Scott said.

“We’ve got five or six options. I’m not happy with any of them so far so we’ll keep working on it.”