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Gold Coast coach Stuart Dew says Ben King only realised his physical limits during a year on the AFL sidelines and is now beginning to experience the benefits.

Ben King's five-goal haul was inevitable if you ask Gold Coast coach Stuart Dew, who witnessed his key forward discover top gear during a year on the sidelines.

King didn't miss in Sunday's 43-point defeat of North Melbourne, five marks and five goals a sight for sore eyes after missing all of last season with a ruptured ACL.

Three weeks ago he spilt four simple marks against Geelong but kept battling in a stunning upset of the reigning premiers.

On Sunday at Heritage Bank Stadium those grabs stuck and he got the reward.

"It has been building. Output's everything and the easiest, most obvious, on show to go to," Dew said.

"We're not surprised though, he's continued to present and even when he didn't mark he got others in the game."

King proved too tricky to handle as the Suns bombed inside 50 at will in the first half, his second and third efforts to lead often leaving him wide open.

Dew said the fit-again talent had worked hard during his rehabilitation and returned a better athlete.

"Kingy had a fantastic rehab in terms of finding out how hard he can work physically," he said.

"I reckon he's just starting to work out how to put that into games."

Victory arrested a two-game slide and took some heat off after a frustrating loss to Fremantle.

"We were a little bit better, more composed," Dew said.

"We're starting to see some passages of play. We've been training hard.

"And the faith we've had in that group, even though we lost last week, those guys repaid that.

"Execution at times let us down but if we can see the method and intent we can work on the execution.

"You'd rather be kicking them, but we can see the guys doing the work."