On the Sunshine Coast, we have a sporting fake which resembles that little girl at the Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony.

Neither is what they appear to be.

But unlike little Lin Miaoke, who did a one-off “Milli Vanilli” with the words to Ode to the Motherland, the Coast’s sporting trickery is ongoing.

It’s the Suncoast Lions AFL Queensland side which is our fake.

They’re a side with a name which suggests they’re from the Sunshine Coast, but these days they are never seen here – not even for a training session.

Their only Coast connection is the three or so teenage kids the Lions call up each week to fill out their match day squad.

The Zillmere Eagles, from the northside of Brisbane, have more of a Coast connection this season than Suncoast does.

The Suncoast concept started a few years back with good intentions – around the same time as construction of the Fishermans Road complex at Maroochydore was underway.

Basically, the Brisbane Lions reserves squad changed its name over to the Suncoast Lions in 2004 and the AFL club vowed to make an effort to lift the profile of the game on the Coast.

And for a while they did that.

Not only did Coast kids, including the likes of Daniel Dzufer and Sam Reid, get the chance to play state league level footy while still living on the Coast, many of Brisbane’s premiership-winning stars had a run at Fishermans Road, either because they were returning from injury or they were out of favour with coach Leigh Matthews.

It was a good promotional tool for the code that was never really exploited to its fullest as decent-sized crowds turned out to see Jamie Charman’s ruck prowess, Darryl White’s brilliant skills and Robert Copeland’s and Martin Pike’s determination to get out of the twos.

Matthews, himself, was a regular visitor and the locals were thrilled to see him.

As a bonus, the Suncoast name brought more than its share of good results.

The Lions won the first 10 games they played at their second home, only losing for the first time at the end of the 2006 season, against Mt Gravatt – a result which left them out of the finals.

But by ’06, the number of home games Suncoast played on the Sunshine Coast started to drop off substantially as the AFL club became disillusioned with the second-rate facilities at Fishermans Road and what they saw as a lack of support from the local business community.

This year, the only Velocity Sports Cup match played here didn’t involve the Lions.

If that’s the way the bosses at the Gabba still see it, fair enough.

No one can force them to play here.

But don’t pretend to be something you’re not.

The Suncoast name has to disappear from next season and AFL Queensland should get serious about whether they want a state league team to be based in this region, or whether they’re happy with the Noosa, Maroochy Northshore and Caloundra set-ups they have in the lower divisions at the moment.