Easy path is not the ideal
TORQUAY coach Courtney Cuolahan concedes her team’s soft draw in the final three weeks of the home-and-away season is far from the ideal preparation for finals.
The Tigers face Drysdale (eighth on the ladder) this Saturday, followed by matches against Newcomb (ninth) and Portarlington (tenth) — three teams that have won four games between them for the season.
It provides Torquay with an outside hope of sneaking into the top three to earn a double chance, but Cuolahan said her preference would have been to face some tougher challenges ahead of finals.
“One way you can look at it is that there are hopefully three wins, but it is probably not ideal to go into the finals playing the bottom three sides,” Cuolahan said.
“I think ideally we would like to be playing some decent games leading into finals, but in saying that it will give us an opportunity to hopefully get back some percentage and run through some combinations that we haven’t seen for a few weeks.
“I can’t see us catching up that much percentage, even though stranger things have happened. But we will just go through our structures and if we’re doing all the things right then it shouldn’t matter where we finish up on the ladder.”
One option available to Cuolahan would be to add training sessions and intra-club games during the week, although she said her players were not short on motivation less than a month out from finals.
The Tigers did manage to find time for a gruelling session with retired Australian star Madi Robinson last week, however, and Cuolahan said it was crucial her team now directed its focus towards taking on Drysdale.
“That (session) came at a fantastic time for us and it really showed in our game on Saturday, I thought it was one of our best games for the year,” she said.
“I have organised some practice matches so hopefully that will help, but otherwise the girls are very focused and are competitive anyway.
“We have been a little bit inconsistent getting girls there each week so we have had to try other combinations, but I think for us, this time is about trying to settle and hopefully getting three good wins, but Drysdale has some very quality players so we’re definitely not taking them lightly.”