Gold Coast boss Mark Evans has bristled at suggestions Gary Ablett has played his last AFL game for the club.
The Suns chief executive went to amusing lengths to shut down talk of the midfielder's potential exit on Wednesday, playfully slapping the hand of a journalist with a club brochure when pressed on the subject.
Ablett will miss Saturday's final home game of the season against Essendon on Saturday due to a recurring hamstring injury.
"It's not his last game. He's contracted for another year and that's my first priority - not to organise farewells but to make sure (players) want to be here the following year," he said.
Evans was then asked if he was certain Ablett would remain on the Gold Coast, to which he replied "stop it" while jokingly slapping the journalist with a brochure.
While Evans wants Ablett to stay, the chief executive said the club was bigger than any individual.
"If people really think this club is based around one individual, one coach, one CEO, one captain, one star player, one recruit next year, one draftee. You think it's based around one person, you've got the wrong idea about what high performance is all about," he said.
"We will build a culture that celebrates and pushes hard to be better every single day."
Speaking at the Suns' reconciliation plan launch on the Burleigh Heads foreshore, the former AFL football operations manager said he'd seen enough to convince him the code could achieve success on the Gold Coast.
"Every club, every franchise in the world has to connect and mean something to its community and I know it can be delivered here," Evans said.
AAP