Shield focus follows defeat
BROTHERS coach Steve Mcnaughton gave his side no time to lick its wounds.
The undefeated North Queensland Football premiers had the three-peat rug pulled from under their feet by a late goal to MA Olympic’s Emma Lovelady.
A 1-0 result in the Premier League grand final was a bitter pill to swallow.
But the Brothers women fought tooth and nail to the final whistle. When that whistle came, though, emotions began to overwhelm a few players.
Mcnaughton could see his players losing focus with a major task still on the horizon — a second-straight Crad Evans Shield.
He had to act quickly.
“We didn’t lick our wounds, what ended up happening directly after the game, they shook each other’s hand and then I instantly brought them in and talked about the premiership,” Mcnaughton said.
“It’s the thing I was so proud of, we won the premiership, which is the ultimate goal each season. I was proud of them before the grand final and I reinforced that.
“But then I made them aware everything was on the line for the pride of Townsville.”
The Brothers side were impressive in their dispatching of Far North rivals Leichhardt in the Crad Evans last season, but will have their work cut out for them to overcome Edge Hill United, who are similarly smarting after dropping their respective grand final last weekend, at 1300SMILES Active Park on Saturday.
“We are doing this for the rest of the competition, we are doing it for the region,” Mcnaughton said.
“While the wound was still open and raw, you get in and say, ‘now that is done, we lost to the better team, and now our focus is the Shield’. That starts at training.”
Brothers could be without influential centre back Zali Simmonds who has an ankle injury but Mcnaughton said he would give the star defender the whole week to get right for the Shield clash.
In an attempt to get an edge over their Cairns rivals, Mcnaughton has organised with North Queensland Football to move the side’s training sessions to the main field at 1300SMILES Active Park for this week.