SUNS Senior Coach Stuart Dew has put the challenge to his players to continue to roll out the same effort and intent which has seen the team restart the AFL season with two-straight wins.
Gold Coast came back with a bang in Round 2, taking down West Coast before an equally impressive win against the Crows last Sunday.
Dew believes the success has come off the back of the group’s buy-in over the pre-season and implored his side to keep the foot on the accelerator.
“What we want to do as a footy club is firstly win and play exciting footy and a high-pressure game,” Dew said,
“We’ve been training the ability to attack in many different ways and at different speeds depending on the situation.
“The pleasing thing is we’re seeing in the two hours on the weekend what we’ve been training for a number of months.
“We’d love to see it again and that’s the accountability we want and we want to try to put the players under that pressure internally to deliver.
“They’ve showed they’re capable and it’s exactly what we believe.”
The SUNS face Fremantle in Round 4 who Dew believes are in better form than their ladder position represents.
One of the challenges, Dew admitted, would be to contain reigning Brownlow medallist Nat Fyfe and limit his impact on the game.
“Clearly he’s one of the best players in the competition so it’s going to be a balance of trying to match him and I guess have as much influence as he can with our group,” he said.
“But he is one of many and I think a feature of our midfield has been spreading the load through a number of different people.
“We’ll certainly have some players there that we think can handle him in different situations.
It’s going to take a couple of guys in different areas to monitor his strengths.”
To go with the two victories, Gold Coast has also had back-to-back NAB AFL Rising Star nominations through Matt Rowell and Connor Budarick.
Dew praised the efforts of his two young recruits and said the nominations were a reflection of all the hard work they’d put in to get to this stage.
“It’s pleasing for the footy club the recognition for a couple of young lads at the start of their careers,” he said.
“It’s exciting for them and their families and their pathways that they’ve come through; their junior clubs and their schools.
“That’s the beauty of the Rising Star nomination is the reflection of their journey and who’s been a part of it.
“Those two and all our other younger players love this winning feeling and they want to keep that going so if that’s another by-product of another great game from the side we’ll take it.”
