Greater Western Sydney’s current AFL campaign threatens to feature fewer wins than the two they tallied in 2012, but coach Kevin Sheedy is confident his side is not suffering from the second-year blues.

Gold Coast struggled early in their second season, failing to win a match until round 16 and not progressing as much as many expected them to.

On Saturday, the Suns’ extra year of experience was telling in their 44-point victory over GWS at Manuka Oval.

The Giants’ final-quarter fadeout in Canberra was in stark contrast to the same fixture last year, when GWS posted their maiden AFL win and finished over the top of the Suns to win by 27 points.

Along with Melbourne, who GWS lost to last week, the Suns were expected to be Sheedy’s best chance of saluting in his 29th and final year as a head VFL/AFL coach.

“Losing Chad Cornes, Luke Power and James McDonald – that’s a big loss for a young team. (Suspended ruckman Dean) Brogan wasn’t out there either,” the four-time premiership coach replied when asked if his side’s slump was a case of the second-year blues.

“So we’re probably a younger side this year than we were last year.

“What’s going to happen is because they (Power and McDonald) are not playing with us, we’re going to get an enormous amount of experience into the next group of players.

“We’re going to rush players in there and give them 25 to 30 games, and give those to them nearly quicker than Gold Coast did.

“And that’s enough to win a game in the last quarter, those five or six more experienced players.

“I mean, an experienced player for us is Sam Reid, who hasn’t played 20 games yet.”

Suns coach Guy McKenna believed it was too early to determine which club had done a better job of recruitment.

“That question will be asked every year, every match, every half season, every review of every season for probably the next 10 or 15 years,” McKenna said.

“We’ll probably answer that when whoever wins the first premiership, I’m sure.”