Magpies prosper
NORTH Geelong coach Shannon Knox-Gray says losing more than half her team over the preseason has only added merit to the success her side has had this season.
The Geelong Cats took over North Geelong’s VFL licence in the off-season, and the Magpies started their new life fielding a side in Ballarat’s AFL Goldfields league.
The Pies lost more than half their talented side to the Cats, but Knox-Gray said her club never lost its culture.
Tomorrow, North Geelong will hope to complete the perfect season by winning the Division 1 grand final against Redan.
“When the Cats took over the licence this year, it did decimate our team by quite a bit,” she said.
“I think we’ve got seven players from last year and the rest are new or players that have come back. We made sure we kept the professionalism at the club and stuck to our values.
“To win a premiership off what Geelong Cats have taken, I think that would be a pretty successful effort.’’
The Magpies have made the transition look seamless, going undefeated through the season while providing a reserves grade for VFL-listed players to come back to.
Knox-Gray said it would mean a hell of a lot to win a flag.
“It means everything to myself as the coach, but probably more importantly I know how much it will mean to this group,” she said.
“It’s something we put up in preseason, what we wanted to achieve, and I think we knew we would be successful if we worked hard and stuck to our core values.
“You can have all the players with ability, but when you have all the rest, those strong core values, professionalism and commitment to each other, I think that’s what we’ve done really well and part of the reason we’ve been successful.”
North Geelong met Redan a fortnight ago in a second semi-final, prevailing 53-20.
It was as close as any side had troubled the Magpies this year — in the final round of the regular season, the Magpies thrashed the same team, 97-14.
“We’re sort of classing that, not as a loss, but from where we need to be, we know we need to be better than that to win this game,” Knox-Gray said of the semi-final.
The final will be held tomorrow at Norman St, Wendouree at 3.36pm.