SPEAKING to the media from Brisbane Lions HQ yesterday, speedy Lion Sophie Conway gave those in attendance an insight into where things are at in the Lions camp ahead of Saturday’s AFL Women’s Grand Final.

On the notion that making the Grand Final again is becoming a “habit” for the Lions, Conway said the aim of the club was to go deep in every finals series.

“I feel like each and every year we strive to put ourselves in these positions and I feel like it starts from our pre-preseason phase to now,” she said. “It’s obviously really exciting, it’s why you play footy, you want to be training the last week of the season and play the last game of the season. We’ve put ourselves in a great position and we’ve got one more to go.”

However, she did not 100 per cent agree that having played so many AFLW Grand Finals before would give Brisbane an advantage.

“Yeah and no,” Conwy said. “North Melbourne are a quality side, they’ve been pushing for the last couple of years as well. There’s a few of us who are about to play our fifth grand final, I’m about to play my fourth, and then there’s some in our team who are about to play their first so we’ve got a variety of players with Grand Final experience and North have also had that as well.

“They have players that have come from other teams as well. It’s going to be red hot, obviously we’ll bring our knowledge and our experiences and our learnings, but you can’t really look too much into that.”

Conway praised the flexibility of the Lions, noting that if big players do have to miss on Sunday they have the flexibility to counter their absence, exactly like they did the last time they played the Kangaroos.

“I think the biggest thing about our group this year is that we’ve been very adaptable and versatile,” Conway said. “We’ve seen Shannon go up forward, we saw her do it on the weekend, so we’ve got the versatility within our group where we’re very flexible and obviously that’s a key part as to why we’ve done so well this year again. Our group has been very open minded to what the coaching staff has put in front of us.”

Conway also spoke of her excitement of receiving her first All-Australian blazer, but also noted she could not have achieved it without those around her.  

“There will be no better feeling than post-game and the possibilities of what could happen, but at the end of the day it’s also still nice to get some individual success, but that doesn’t happen without the players around you,” she said.

“For myself to have the season that I’ve had is obviously awesome, but that doesn’t happen without our medical team, high performance guys, coaching staff and obviously the players that I run out with, so I’ve got the blazer but at the end of the day it’s the 21 that run out with me.”