After returning to the senior team for Sunday’s victory over Brisbane, Matt Rosa understands that there’s a challenge to maintain his spot.

He says that the tight-knit playing group is keen to maintain high standards throughout the season, and that means no one can take their place in the team for granted.

In his second game of the season, the wingman had 21 disposals, five inside 50s and four tackles.

“The great thing at the moment is that there’s great competition for spots, some guys had some great pre-seasons, and I sort of had a bit of an injury interrupted pre-season, so it was always going to be a challenge,” Rosa told the media.

“I think the good thing is that the groups so tight at the moment we understand that you’re going to need the whole list to continue to play good footy throughout the whole season.

“Really all I’ve worried about is just controlling what I can control, working hard and competing when I get the opportunities.”

In tight games, having experienced heads such as Rosa can be crucial for a young playing group.

The SUNS were able to get over the line, but the wingman knows that the team has plenty of learnings to take out of the game.

“We learnt a lot from the game, we’ve already watched parts of the game…and then move onto Adelaide.”

“There’s definitely a lot of learning points, especially late in the game we did a lot of things right,

“But there’s some things we can improve and we’ll learn from that and get better.”