BLACKHAWKS RELISH DOLPHINS CHALLENGE
ONE of the Townsville Blackhawks Colts’ star players has been given the green light in time to steer his team in Saturday’s grand final against the Redcliffe Dolphins.
Cowboys-contracted Jake Bourke has been under an injury cloud dealing with a shoulder complaint, but coach Steve Sheppard said the squad was “healthy and ready to go” and would run out as named 1-17.
Bourke has formed an electric combination with under-21 halves partner Thomas Duffy in recent weeks.
The Blackhawks halves will be key to winning the final, but Sheppard said their ability to play well would depend on the strength of the middle forwards.
“We have plenty of strike across the park, and if our forwards can lay a good platform then our halves will work really hard together and I’m sure our outside men will get their opportunities,” he said.
The team knows it needs to start fast, and Sheppard said that it was important for his team to be alert from the first whistle.
“We need to really embrace the challenge straight up, they’ve got a big pack and the way they’ve been starting has been setting up their game,” he said.
“We need to make sure that we’ve got plenty of line speed and that we get into it straightaway.”
The main focus at training this week was putting in an 80-minute performance, after suffering a late-game fade in last week’s preliminary final, conceding 16 points in the final 10 minutes.
Sheppard said the team would be focused for the final.
“We’ve played some really good footy for periods, but we haven’t put an 80-minute performance together yet, so that’ll be the focus,” he said.
The young Blackhawks team is made up of players from three separate training squads, so their cohesion has been especially impressive this year.
The coach said that their ability to come together and form combinations had been their biggest strength.
“We’ve got a really good group, and we’ve had to come from all different parts,” Sheppard said.
“We’ve got Blackhawks squad members, we’ve got Blackhawks (Hostplus) Cup players, we’ve got (Cowboys) Young Gun players – so we’ve had three different training squads that we’ve had to bring together.
“They’ve done a really good job sticking together and hopefully they can stick together for 80 minutes on Saturday.”