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Geelong midfielder Patrick Dangerfield says his desire to win an elusive premiership still burns as he prepares to enter his sixth AFL finals series.
But despite being potentially just three wins away from a flag, the Brownlow Medallist isn’t looking beyond next week’s qualifying final clash with Collingwood.
“It burns but at the same time you’ve got to make sure you get there,” Dangerfield said on Wednesday.
“So our preparation can’t be any further than this week really and then our first session Friday night which will prepare us as best we can and then the first quarter against Collingwood.
“(We) can’t afford to look any further ahead – Collingwood are too good an opposition not to do that and the competition’s just too even.”
Since Dangerfield joined the Cats at the end of 2015, he has played in three finals series, including losing two preliminary finals.
He said the “united” and “hungry” nature of the current Cats team held them in good stead for September success.
“We’ve had really good opportunities in ’16, ’17 and last year,” Dangerfield said.
“But you’ve got to make the most of those opportunities. We haven’t been able to do that.
“But I think this is a really united group that has really I suppose flourished in a contested style of footy that we’ve played. And we’ve got some hungry players that are eager for success so I think that’s a good starting point.”
Dangerfield said it was difficult to compare the current Cats team to the one that had fallen short in recent seasons, especially given changes in personnel – with Luke Dahlhaus, Gary Rohan and Gryan Miers among the new faces involved this year.
“If you look at personnel it’s totally different,” Dangerfield said.
“And we knew that coming into the season, people will compare it to previous years and generations, but it is a vastly different team than what we had, you know, only a few years ago.”
The Cats defeated the Magpies back in Round 1, but Dangerfield said that game would have little bearing on either side’s preparation.
“Both teams have changed so dramatically since then,” he said.
“So I doubt there’ll be much reviewing of that game in terms of how you prepare for this week from both sides because so much has happened since then and Collingwood have played some great footy over the last few weeks and have obviously finished top four.
“So we’ve got to make sure that we prepare as best we can, we start well, we embrace the crowd and we try and get as many Geelong supporters to the game as we possibly can.”
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