The most experienced finals player in the GC SUNS’ current line-up, Jarrod Harbrow, said his team can’t afford to look too far ahead, despite a maiden finals position going up for grabs over the next two games.

Harbrow has appeared in nine AFL finals matches from his time with the Western Bulldogs, but with his young side struggling to maintain the standards set in the early part of the campaign, the 26-year-old has called on his teammates to focus on nothing more than the next training session heading in to Saturday’s must-win clash with Essendon.

“In my experience, this time of year is a real grind on your body,” Harbrow told The Gold Coast Bulletin.

“It’s been well documented the boys are feeling the pinch after a full season.

“A massive emphasis for us now is how well we recover during the week. That’s the biggest thing. The first three, four days after a game is all about recovery.

“Recovery becomes the most important thing and mentally the situation we’re in at the moment – are we going to make finals? – we just need to worry about our next training session, to be honest.”

The SUNS kept coming at Port Adelaide in the final term last week and almost snatched a miracle victory, and Harbrow said the team needs to continue to learn to keep hanging around in games to stay in each contest at the back end of the year.

“It’s probably the toughest period we’ve been through, the last six weeks,” he said. “It’s a matter of the boys really believing in what we can achieve.

“We have to learn how to deal with hanging in (there) in games but coming in to the later end of the season now and the boys really need to worry about getting themselves right because the next two games for us are huge.”