Gold Coast may be flying high in third place, but coach Guy McKenna says he is still "scarred" by maulings from Fremantle and Hawthorn earlier in the season.
The SUNS' 45-point win over the Western Bulldogs has moved them to the 7-2 mark, behind only Port Adelaide and Geelong, but they now face a brutal six-week stretch that will test their finals credentials.
They play Adelaide (away), the Sydney Swans (home), West Coast (away), Geelong (home), Hawthorn (away) and Collingwood (home) in successive weeks.
While McKenna says five straight wins has given the SUNS plenty of confidence, he is still mindful of the 48-point loss to the Dockers in round two and the 99-point smashing from Hawthorn two weeks later.
"I'm probably scarred by Fremantle and Hawthorn to be honest," McKenna said.
"I thought our first half against Hawthorn (was good), but even in that we were still five goals down. We're clearly not as good as Hawthorn."
But McKenna refused to give ground to the rest of the competition, saying they could only beat the teams in front of them.
"The draw is the draw. Going into this game we'd won six games, and last I looked we'd beaten five sides all on the bottom. A win's a win, that's what you have to do," he said.
"I think there's other sides out there, tougher draws, easier draws … round 22 will tell us where we sit.
"You win five in a row there'll be some confidence in the group, that would get their tail up.
"We showed last year we were able to rise, I think two of our better games were Hawthorn at the MCG, we lost by 26 points, and we were level at Kardinia Park (Simonds Stadium) against Geelong (at three-quarter time) and fell away poorly.
"We come up against some of the better sides in the next month, we're better served because of the confidence."
Despite playing most of the competition strugglers in the first 10 weeks, McKenna said he was impressed by the more consistent performance of his team.
"The way we've won, how we've won, we've been challenged … that gives you confidence," he said.
