What are your initial thoughts on that one?
I was really happy with the effort and I thought our execution wasn’t too bad but Adelaide’s pressure today made us handpass too many times when we should’ve been kicking it forward and trusting our forwards. Which isn’t really part of our make-up and Adelaide did that well with their pressure. There were times when we started to play our brand and looked really dangerous but they’re just a very hard side to break down Adelaide and every time we looked like we were going to get on a bit of a roll they managed to arrest the momentum and halt it for a while.
It felt like your defence held up pretty well considering how many entries they had – is that how you assessed it?
Yes. Our defence was a bit shaky early I thought but our defence in the second half I thought was really good and also gave us a bit of rebound, but they’ve obviously got a talented forward line and you can’t just sit on one player and be comfortable. In the end I thought our backs battled it out really well.
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How would you describe the mood in the rooms at the moment?
Really disappointed. I came down just a couple of minutes after them and there were a lot of tears and real disappointment, which I think suggests that they realise how close we are and so that’s what makes it hurt more. The fact that we were a chance, it wasn’t like we just got blown off the park by a better team and if we had’ve got things right maybe we could’ve been there next week. I think the better team won today but I think that sense that we were actually close hurts more at the moment and that’s how they’re feeling.
We talked about this year and we label it as a success. Last year we were well and truly off the mark with the top sides and this year we were around the mark and it can give us some good building blocks for next year, or this year more than likely.
You still have a young list who’ve had a taste of finals, is that a bit of upside giving those girls the exposure?
Absolutely, I think a few of our younger ones struggled a bit today. Dana East with the exception I thought she was really good. But a few of the younger ones did struggle but we were definitely the younger side in the finals and hopefully next year we’ll keep a very similar squad and can challenge again.
Those games that we’ve had through the finals series will stand them in good stead next time they’re out at a venue like this, they won't be overawed, they can come out and show their full talent and we think that’s a real positive for us.
What’s the next step heading into next season?
We’ve changed our game plan this year in the way we defend and attack and put a few more strings to our bow so probably just executing that better. We're always on the lookout for good players that want to come to us but it’s very hard to attract players to come across to the other side of the country on these short term contracts. We’re really happy with the squad we’ve got as well, and we think this squad can improve enough on their own to challenge at the end of this year as well.
Do you expect the competition expansion to impact you guys?
Hopefully not too much, we haven’t heard anything at the moment. I’ll be surprised because the group seems so tight and so committed.
We’ve been through it before but you could see signs of players who are sort of thinking about it when West Coast came in and you could see their performances dip at that time of the year and things like that.
I haven’t had any sense of that at all, so we’re hopeful that everyone's happy and wants to commit and go again but we’ll have to wait and see how that plays out over the next few weeks.
How much of a sniff did you think you were at three quarter time particularly when you kicked the first goal of the last quarter?
I thought at half time they got on top. To be honest it was four goals to one in the second quarter and I thought this could actually get ugly and to the girls credit they fought so hard at the end of that quarter and they turned it around themselves. We weren’t doing anything special in the coaches box, the girls did that themselves and then the last quarter we needed something special, and Chelsea Randall was outstanding. Bianca Webb was doing a reasonable job on Chelsea but then we lost Gabby O’Sullivan with an ankle which meant Bianca had to go into the midfield and then Chelsea just tore us apart in that third quarter. We moved Emma O’Driscoll there to try and play an negating role and when she hit the scoreboard we thought this could be one of those fairy-tale days for us and we were coming hard but Adelaide they just plugged up the stoppages and played really smart footy with that experience, and just made it really hard.
How is Gabby’s ankle?
I think it’ll be okay. It’s just a garden variety ankle I think but enough to really impact her and she would’ve probably been in doubt next week. It’s not a major one at all.
Was she the only one injured?
I think so. Janelle Cuthbertson had a tough day as well. She got a few knocks and that, but I don’t think there’s anything. Hopefully it's just the warrior that she is and she’ll enjoy an off season, she definitely deserves one.
