Familiar feeling for gutsy Ammos

FOR Geelong Amateur, Saturday’s shock loss was an all too familiar premiership pain.

The side’s second consecutive grand final defeat was suffered at the hands of Modewarre, which claimed victory 43-27.

Ammos came out firing, determined to avenge its onegoal grand final loss to Torquay last year.

But Ammos’ four-goal lead at the first break would be its last with Modewarre gaining momentum.

On paper, it was fielding a side of seasoned finals campaigners but the experience wasn’t enough to give Ammos an edge over the Warriors.

The 16-goal Modewarre victory was in stark contrast to the team’s three prior meetings this season, which were all decided by less than two goals.

Coach Ash Salter said she was “shattered” with the result, admitting her side let it slip in the second half.

“We aimed to come out in the third (quarter) and get ahead and we just couldn’t do it,” she said.

“We were playing a little bit reactive rather than proactive and just couldn’t get ahead.”

Changes in all thirds of the court, including moving Kate Schippers from goals to defence, failed to make the desired impact.

“Our team’s great in that we’re pretty diverse. We can make lots of changes and usually it works but today we just couldn’t pull it off,” Salter said.

“We just needed a bit of spark and we didn’t get it unfortunately.”

Ammos played only one finals match before advancing through to the big stage but Salter said she didn’t believe the break did more harm than good.

“I think Modewarre put four consistent quarters together, they looked after the ball, they were in control and they kept their foot down,” she said.

“We had a good few weeks off, worked on our own game and were able to play a couple of really good practice matches against GFL teams so that’s certainly no excuse.”