Ingham fall short in the grand final

KIRRILY Low might just be North Queensland’s unluckiest local sports star – she’s lost all of her eight grand final appearances for the same club.

The Ingham Football Club’s Reserve Grade women’s team had a dominant season in which they lost just two games, one in regular competition and the second in a 3-2 extra-time defeat to MA Olympic in Townsville on Friday night.

Low ( pictured), the Wolves’ captain, has led from the front, scoring 30 goals during the season, but was left badly injured against Townsville Brothers three weeks ago.

Despite the serious leg and knee injury, Low donned her kit on Friday with the intention of taking the field for a final few minutes if the SheWolves were ahead.

“I was only going to go on for the shortest amount of time just to say I was a part of it because, as you can imagine, I was pretty devastated that I got up to that point and could no longer play the semis or the final,” she said.

Despite a promising start, the Wolves produced a poor first-half performance, down 2-0 heading into the break.

After an impassioned halftime speech from standout Ingham coach Rodney Fascetti, the Wolves rebounded with goals to Brooke Mcleod and Adriana Spano and should have claimed victory from a number of chances in front of goal, including a shot that struck the post.

Low, 30, took the field 10 minutes from full-time, but went back off once Mundingburra scored the decisive final goal.

She put the team’s first-half performance down to nerves.

“Most of those girls have never been in a grand final and they did not know what to expect and with all the supporters there I guess they were nervous. They didn’t want to let anybody down and it showed in their performance in the first half,” she said.

Low said Fascetti’s halftime talk fired up the side.

“At halftime Rodney and Ray basically gave a big talk about do we want to be here and we’ve got to put it in and they definitely showed it in the second half, that’s for sure,” she said.

In another twist of fate, none of the five Hinchinbrook teams from various clubs that made grand finals this year recorded wins.