THE Brisbane Lions would possibly want to search out their “greatest footy” rapidly, with a AFLW grand ultimate spot on the road at Metricon Stadium tonight.
Regardless of his aspect having gained the minor premiership, Lions coach Craig Starcevich admitted to being on edge forward of Brisbane’s preliminary ultimate date with reigning premiers Adelaide.
“(It’s) as nerve-racking as ever,” Starcevich mentioned.
“You do a complete lot of labor to get up to now and finally you wish to play the final week, so to get there you’ve obtained to get by the third week of the finals.
“Two weeks in the past (within the qualifying ultimate) it wasn’t knockout – that is now knockout. The stakes are increased the additional you get.
“You recognize you’re enjoying in opposition to a extremely good opponent who’ve been there loads of time themselves. We’ve obtained nice historical past with them and we’re anticipating a fierce battle (on Friday).
“You’ll see an awesome recreation of footy between two actually good groups.”
Starcevich mentioned “anybody” might win.
“I can stroll you thru a complete lot of various situations over time the place groups which can be anticipated to do effectively haven’t, so that you simply must be continuously on guard for each risk – there are not any givens,” he mentioned.
“I nonetheless really feel like we’re miles and miles away from our greatest footy, to be trustworthy.
“It’s a unending quest to maintain discovering enchancment, however to our crew’s credit score one factor that has made them a pleasure to teach is once you level out just a few issues, we usually repair it.”
Starcevich admitted he had been annoyed by the continuing speak about the place the Lions would host the grand ultimate when his crew had but to achieve the decider.
“My job is to maintain the deal with the right here and now … so for me it’s irritating,” he mentioned.
“It’s one thing that I would like to ensure our gamers are shielded from and we deal with the (job) as a result of it’s not being generated by me, it’s not being generated by the gamers – it’s exterior noise.”
He mentioned the one optimistic from the hypothesis concerning the grand-final venue was that it meant loads of publicity for the AFLW.
“If you wish to have a look at it that approach, as a back-handed approach of claiming we’re getting loads of press about it, it’s positively creating that,” Starcevich mentioned.
“However for me it’s about concentrating on what we have to do, which is play respectable footy.”
