When Andrew Davy took the coaching reins at South United last season as the club returned from 15 years in the first grade wilderness, he never envisaged that 12 months on they would be playing in a grand final.
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But on Sunday his side will be shooting for the club’s first-ever first grade premiership when they take on defending champions Flames.
“To be honest I didn’t expect to be in a grand final second year back in first grade,” Davy said.
“Our main aim is to provide local girls in the South club and girls from Armidale with the opportunity to develop and play first grade in Tamworth.”
“I guess as the season progressed there was a self-belief there in the team.”
They will go into the decider confident after thrashing Flames 6-nil in the major semi-final but at the same time wary that they will be a much tougher proposition.
“I’m expecting them to be much stronger than two weeks ago, and stronger than they were last weekend,” Davy said.
The premiers were without Kimmy Resch in the major semi, and Kate Ferguson only lasted three minutes. They are two big holes.
“Kate and Kimmy showed how important they are last week,” Davy said.
Souths will be missing Nardie Pollock from the semi-final but will welcome back Meg Lye.
He said they’ll be looking to play the same style of hockey as they did two weeks ago, it’s just a matter of lifting their game another level.
“We definitely need to be more consistent and execute better in the midfield in order to be able to get the result that we want on the weekend,” he said.
“I still think we can we use the ball more than we have. We have a tendency at times to run the ball a bit too much.”
He believes the midfield will be the key area.
“I think whoever can win that area of the field will go a long way towards winning the game,” he said.
Decision making will also be critical at both ends of the pitch.
“I think we can be more decisive in defence. Just our decision making in defence at times. We can be a bit loose there,” Davy said.
It will be new territory for the majority of the side with only Alison Billingshurst, to Davy’s knowledge, having played in a Tamworth first grade grand final before.
Accordingly he expects there to be a few nerves, but he is confident they can handle the occasion.
Flames survived an extra-time thriller against Waratahs to book their spot in the decider, their higher standing seeing them through after the two sides couldn’t be split.
Coach Barrie Pritchard believes the way they dug in will serve them well..
“Certainly last week’s performance was pretty special,” he said.
“That’s a big bonus to go into this game on the back of that. We fought hard for that.”
He isn’t worried about what happened two weeks ago.
As they have shown throughout the season, at full strength they “are a force to be reckoned with”.
“Last game we spent most of the game defending. We couldn’t really get any attack going,” Pritchard said.
Not having Ferguson and Resch played a big part in that.
“Kate’s work in the midfield just presents us with a lot more opportunity to go forward,” he said.
“And then not having Kim. She’s got speed to burn and skill. You can’t allocate one defender to her.”
Ash Allen should also be right after missing the second half of the major semi and last week.
Pritchard spoke of the importance of taking their opportunities.
“In any major match, and it happened to us in the grand final two years ago, you’ve got to treat any opportunity like gold,” he said.
“You can’t have 10 chances and get none or have 10 and get two. We’ve got to be quality in the circle.”
They also have to pressure Souths through the middle of the field and not make life easy for them.