KING SHOWS SUNS ARE ON RIGHT TRACK: DEW

FIFTH-YEAR Gold Coast coach Stuart Dew believes injured forward Ben King’s re-signing is proof the players are starting to believe in the Suns’ direction.

King, one of the AFL’S best young key forwards, will miss the season after rupturing the ACL in his right knee in a marking contest at training in February.

But his decision to ink a two-year extension soon after that setback buoyed Gold Coast and removed a potential season-long distraction istraction as the club plans for life without the key forward in the short term.

“It’s clearly a positive,” Dew said of the signing of King (pictured).

“It’s further evidence that the team and the players, in particular, are buying into what we’re all building as a footy club

“Even to wind back to when I first got the job, winning was always going to be the last piece of the puzzle when you’re building culture, connection and a group of people who are going to commit to something.

“That takes time and we made some decisions across the journey to cut the list pretty deep and Ben was part of that from the start, so it’s fantastic.

“It’s good reward for all the players and staff who have been part of this journey so far, that he can see a way forward.”

Recruits Levi Casboult and Mabior Chol will be part of the solution in the absence of King, whose 47 goals last season were the equal-10th-most in the competition.

King is back on the Gold Coast after undergoing his knee reconstruction in Melbourne.

“(Injuries are) a reality of sport, and that’s why we try to build a team not around one player as well,” Dew said. “Kingy’s aware of that and the other guys are aware they’ve got to pick up (his) couple of goals every game from last year, so we’re we’ trying to absorb that with w the rest of the players.” e

The Suns rounded out o a promising preseason s with an upset defeat d of Geelong in the Community Co Series and remain rem wary of injury-ravaged round ro 1 rival West Coast, particularly at a Perth Stadium. “We’re pretty strict on talking about who’s playing rather than who’s not playing,” Dew said of the clash.

“I think we’ve all, across the journey of our time in sport, or AFL, in particular, been bitten pretty badly by looking at who’s not in the team. “This club and system won a premiership not that long ago and there’ll be a number of those players playing and some pretty handy players coming in ... they’ll be hungry.”