Hawthorn veteran Stuart Dew, the only Hawk with grand final experience, has warned his eager team-mates not to go looking for trouble against Geelong on football's biggest day.
Dew, who won a premiership with Port Adelaide in a fiery decider with Brisbane in 2004, said the acts of undisciplined individuals could hurt a team more than ever when the flag goes on the line.
Many football followers are expecting a last man standing classic akin to the most recent grand final meeting between these two teams; the 1989 thriller in which the Hawks saluted by a goal.
That day Mark Yeates ironed out Dermott Brereton at the opening bounce, bruising Brereton's kidney and causing internal bleeding.
The champion forward's team-mate Robert DiPierdomenico suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung while John Platten was knocked out in arguably the most famous grand final of the modern era.
But Dew has warned the football and not the foe should be the focus when the underdog Hawks take on the Cats.
"It's more about having control," Dew explained, before taking to the icy waters of Brighton during a Monday afternoon recovery session.
"You don't want to give away silly free kicks."
"In this day and age you can't make the man your focus because it costs the side dearly with free kicks of 50-metre penalties."
"In a tight game you don't want that to be the difference."
"You don't want to look back at a silly free kick of a head high attack on the ball as the reason you won or lost the game."
But Dew promised this year's grand final, like all, would have 'spice'.
"I think the attack has got to be all fair and mainly on the ball or the player with the ball," he said.
"If it spills over, it spills over."
"It's not going to be the plan. You're not switched on if that's the way you go about it."
Croad agreed that this weekend's clash probably wouldn't give too many highlights to the next edition of 'Biffs, Bumps and Brawlers'.
"You can't do what they did in those days anymore, can you?"
"You can ask Dermott as much as you want but I don't think you can play like that anymore."
"From our point of view we hope it is a fantastic spectacle."