Daylesford A grade coach Carly Luke after thrilling preliminary final victory against Learmonth

The Courier

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00:00Alright, so congratulations Carly. How does it feel that you're going to be in the Grand Final next season?

00:04It's a relief to be honest. I feel like we've had such a good season and it would be a real shame if we weren't in the Grand Final.

00:10I can't say I wasn't worried for a bit. We had a really good start and then we sort of fell away a little bit.

00:15Just too many errors. But I just think we're a real finishing team. We really come back strong.

00:21And we just had the belief where at no point are we out of this. We always know we're going to come home strong.

00:26And the girls just really, really wanted to win for each other. So it feels amazing.

00:29When you get down a little bit wider early on in the game, what do you think were the changes that you made there to get you back in the game?

00:35Well, Limonth are just a really well drilled team. They know each other like second nature.

00:39We're still relatively new. I'm only three years into coaching this team so we're still kind of figuring some things out.

00:44But I think for us, we just have that depth and we know that when something's not working, we've got the changes to make it.

00:49We've got girls that play millions of positions. I had no intention of ending up in wing defence today and that just happened because we had someone sent off and it worked.

00:57So we're just really confident in our girls that no matter what position they're in, we're going to be able to dig ourselves out.

01:02I think that's what we did. We ground them down.

01:04You had some pretty tough conditions out there, particularly for the shooners. How do you think they were adjusting to that?

01:08Oh my God, they're just beasts. And that's the best thing. We really try and if something's not working, we'll make a change.

01:13But we always give the girls an opportunity to come back and fix that. And that's exactly what Romy did.

01:16She had a little bit of a shaky start, which wasn't entirely her fault. The conditions and everything add up.

01:20And then when she came on, she just blasted, played that confident, amazing netball that she's capable of.

01:25And I thought she was really important for us towards the end.

01:27You mentioned Romy there. Any other players that really stuck out to you today?

01:30Oh, Peter Fey in goalkeeper. She's 40. She's starting to slow down. She will tell you she's starting to slow down.

01:36But she's just enormous for us and she just doesn't stop battling all day.

01:39I think she's the one that really kept us in the game with her rebounds and just her patience.

01:44For me, I almost can't do two ways these days. I'm playing hard defence. I really struggle to bring the ball out.

01:50She made up for that. She just had my back the whole time. It was awesome.

01:55Any improvements or changes you're going to be making that work on the next game?

02:00Look, I watched Gary's interview. Pretty similar to what he said. I think every team in this league is completely different.

02:06And you have to have a completely different strategy.

02:08So I'll do some opposition analysis and work out what we have to do.

02:12But these girls just keep saying to me, they don't really mind who we're playing. They've got the belief that we can do it.

02:16So we're just going to focus on playing our game.

02:18We know that if we do all the right things and execute, we're pretty unstoppable.

02:21And we actually didn't do that today. So I feel like we've got another level to go up.

02:24So I'm really excited. And also, how great to have a Dalesford Hepburn Grand Final.

02:28I don't think anyone in the Shire would have ever imagined that that would happen.

02:31So whatever the outcome, I think it's absolutely fantastic for the Shire.

02:35It's going to be an awesome weekend for everyone.

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