Coral restoration practices aim to establish coral populations that are functionally diverse to aid ecological resilience in the face of persistent environmental stressors, and notably, climate change. Despite an acceleration of restoration work, return-on-effort evaluation continues to focus on two physical “master traits”, survival and growth. These master traits alone are unlikely informative enough to capture how corals perform across multiple ecosystem service values. Here we considered a “multi-trait” approach to capture how a broader range of functional traits reflect expression of master traits for a key coral species Acropora hyacinthus propagated on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Australia. We examined a diverse array of physical, physiological, and molecular traits for six wild colonies and their nursery-derived fragments, for a 12- month period (Opal Reef, northern GBR). Traits included: survival, growth, tissue colouration, pigment content and symbiont density/ITS2 identity, photobiology, metabolism (photosynthesis, respiration, and calcification), biomolecular content (carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins), elemental composition (C:N:P:X), and skeletal properties. We then examined how these various traitsreflect trade-offs in resource partitioning underpinning differences in growth and/or survival potential. We discuss how targeting additional traits – alongside master traits – are needed to inform how restoration practices impact different ecosystem service functions and values.