SUNS forward Alex Sexton has stepped up to be one of the most consistent Gold Coast players in 2018, but he’s also had to step up in other areas of his game.

After Sam Day and Peter Wright went down with injuries, Brayden Crossley became one of the only available tall forwards and has been playing as the sole key target up front.

For Sexton, while his on-field role hasn’t necessarily changed too much, it means he becomes one of the most experienced players in the forward line alongside Aaron Young.

“I’ve still been able to play my high-forward role getting up and back, that hasn’t changed,” Sexton told the media on Tuesday morning.

“But it’s different because you have to step up in a leadership sense when you do have younger guys coming into that forward line group.

“I’m just trying to set guys up as best as I can and then still be able to play my role.”

Sexton has quickly become one of the most trusted players up front for Gold Coast, and he says he has enjoyed the challenges of the added responsibility.

The forward says he would be open to the possibility of stepping his leadership up in either an official or unofficial role in the future.

“I’ve had to (step up) this year with the boys that we’ve been playing with but I always see my leadership as going step-by-step each year,” he said.

“If that’s in a leadership position I’m happy to do that but like I said just earning the respect of the group is where I’m at.”

But before the focus shifts to the off-season, Sexton has his sights firmly set on knocking Geelong off this weekend and spoiling their finals aspirations.

“You always chat when you can’t make finals about shaping the eight and having a dint in the competition still so it’s definitely on our mind,” Sexton said.

“But we’re just trying to play our game-style for longer and against quality sides where we can really show that so that’s our focus.

“We still see ourselves as a quality footy side when we’re up and going and we showed that on the weekend again that we were hard at the footy and our effort was great and we couldn’t fault that.

“So we’re just looking to finish strong again this week.”