THE DECIDER: Crocs ignoring ‘undefeated’ tag, says Chapple
AFL CAIRNS | GRAND FINAL
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PORT Douglas captain Kye Chapple says his team has respectfully ignored talk of back-to-back premierships this year.
The Crocs are attempting the feat for the first time in the club’s history on Saturday and the possibility of consecutive flags has generated plenty of discussion around town.
“You hear it discussed a little bit by supporters and the locals, but as a playing group we don’t listen to that sort of stuff,” Chapple said.
“I guess if we’re able to achieve it, then that will be the time to talk about it and celebrate it, but right now we don’t want any of that talk.”
The prospect of completing a perfect season has done little to douse the hype.
The Crocs last tasted defeat 370 days ago today after a slip-up against South Cairns in last year’s semi final.
Chapple said the ‘undefeated’ tag hadn’t been mentioned in the lead up to tomorrow’s decider against Manunda Hawks.
“We’ll just go out there with the sole focus of doing what has worked for us all season,” the star forward said, who has slotted 121 goals this year.
“We’ve got to continue what we’ve been doing all year, and that’s winning. Until we do that there is no point even talking about being undefeated.”
Chapple said the build up to this year’s decider had been different on both a team and personal level.
The Horsham boy was carrying a knee injury last September, but stepped up to boot seven goals in a match-winning grand final performance. He was awarded the Howard Kennedy Medal for best on ground.
“Obviously we didn’t have a game on the weekend so it’s been a little different, we had to keep playing last year after losing to South Cairns (in the semi-final).
“But we had a fairly solid intra club hit out on Saturday, we’re lucky that we had the reserves go straight through as well.
“We rested a few blokes, but the boys had a pretty good hit out at the club and they basically went full noise.”
Expect the noise to get louder if they salute on Saturday.
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