Brisbane Lions Captain Jonathan Brown believes the Gold Coast Suns’ recent introduction to the national AFL competition will ultimately prove a success for the code in Queensland.

But the three-time Premiership centre half-forward was quick to claim that his Club was “still Queensland’s team”.

“Having a side on the Gold Coast has certainly been good for the Gold Coast people,” Brown told SEN radio in Melbourne recently.

“There are quite a lot of southerners who now live on the Gold Coast, so AFL’s pretty well supported down there.”

“I do think though that Brisbane is still Queensland’s team.”

Brown said one of the biggest struggles for the AFL in the Queensland sporting market was the competition for media coverage.

“(The Gold Coast) tends to get a fair bit of local coverage in the Gold Coast Bulletin, (but) the AFL in general has struggled for media coverage in recent times, mainly because it’s a competitive sporting landscape up here and the two AFL clubs have struggled over the last couple of years,” he said.

“You just have to look at the Queensland Reds - the rugby union side. They couldn’t get any publicity five or six years ago, now they’re getting all the publicity.”

“The Brisbane Broncos are very stable, and will be strong in the media no matter how they’re going, and the Brisbane Roar have been strong in the soccer, so it’s been a very tough time for AFL in Queensland.”

Brown also said that the distance that separates Brisbane from the Gold Coast means that there is generally very limited contact between the Lions and Suns players outside of their on-field clashes throughout the season.

“We don’t cross paths really,” Brown said.

“It’s only 45 minutes down to the Coast, and we’ve got two players now - Ben Hudson and Andrew Raines - who are based down there.”

“Myself and Kylie and few of the Lions boys are going down for Michael Rischitelli’s wedding, and a few of the Suns boys will be there. So we’ll have a few drinks and catch up.”