A north v south title bout with real bite to it

NORTH faces South in an intriguing women’s State Club Cup match with Greater Northern League Champions South Launceston entering the lion’s den against Premier League Preliminary Finalists North-West Graduates.

The pair will meet for the first time in a title bout from 1pm today, having not come across one another in the modern era.

South Launceston boasts midfield stars Kiah Williams and Kira Trethewie, penalty corner striker Nicole Symonds and the talented Hannah Connelly.

Unfortunately for the Suns, leading goal scorer Hayley Johns and inside forward Alice Hendry will miss due to injury, opening up an opportunity for Savannah White to be included.

“After the GNL final win, the girls took a week away from training to recover from what has been a long year,” Suns coach Andrew Lancaster said.

“Since then, we’ve been hitting the turf once a week with a contingent of our men’s team to help increase numbers at training along with the intensity at which we’re training.”

Lancaster is proud to be representative the Greater Northern League, as the only representatives to qualify past the second round.

“It’d be fair to say that not many people expected us to even get past Diamondbacks in the Semi-Final, so that makes us the underdogs in this match.”

“We’re pretty happy to be in that position because there’s no real pressure on the team to win, and we can just go out to play our style and see how we match up with Grads on the day!”

North-West Graduates coach Josh Mardell says his side have refreshed since their Premier League exit and hopes to field an unchanged side.

“The girls have had a couple of weeks off so should be refreshed and ready to go after some training this week,” Mardell said.

“We will be focusing on executing our game plan perfectly and certainly will be giving everything to get the medal.”