Craig Goodwin spoke to media on Tuesday, giving his thoughts ahead of Sunday’s clash against Perth Glory at Coopers Stadium.
The Reds come into the clash on a two-game winning streak and hope to finish the regular season strongly with three home matches.
Current ladder position:
“I think, obviously, we do have our eyes set higher up at the table.
“But we probably have to keep it simple and focus on game by game.
“We’ve got three home games, for our run to the end of the season before finals, which is positive for us.
“And we really need to make sure we pick up maximum points.”
Being in contention for the Johnny Warren medal:
“Yeah, look, personal accolades are fantastic.
“It’s something that you strive for within football.
“But for me, that’s not at the forefront of my mind.
“If that comes at the end of the season, then that would be amazing, but it’s not something I’m expecting.
“And for me, the the main thing is to make sure that myself and the boys at training are working hard so that we are focused, and we don’t take our foot off the pedal in these last three games because if we slip up once, we could find ourselves out of the six, and we can’t afford to do that.”
Improving the squad’s mentality:
“I’ve really been trying to work on that kind of mentality within the training session.
“Whenever we’re doing any type of drill that’s competitive, or any type of small-sided games, my attitude and my emphasis to the boys is about winning everything.
“So, for us coming up against Perth, it’s a tricky game because they have had games this year where they played well.
“You can’t just expect to get the three points and go in with that attitude.
“You have to work, and you’ve got to put in the hard yards, and you have to be switched on at every single moment because, if we’re not, they can punish us.”
How crucial three points are:
“I said to the boys a couple of weeks ago, every game from here is a final with the table as close to as it is and the fact that teams will always have a game in hand or maybe two games in hand.
“We can’t afford to have an off day; we can’t afford to be switched off and we can’t afford to drop points.
“So, I think we’re in a good moment with the last two games.
“The attitude has been really good as well and I’m positive that we can get a good result at the weekend.”
Seeing some Legends grace Coopers once again:
“It will be nice with the Legends match.
“There’s some good former AUFC players, so, it would be nice to come out and see some of them at Coopers again.”
