AFTER suffering heartache in the dying moments of last year’s SANFL Women’s Grand Final, South Adelaide’s playing group could have been forgiven for throwing the metaphorical toys out of the cot and questioning where to go from there. But instead, the strength and resilence within the group prevailed and coach Rick Watts said his side is ready for another grand final.

“It’s just excitement as usual,” he said. “Obviously we know we’ve got a job to do, but I think reflecting on last year, we understand that anything can happen on the day, so we’re just proud of what the athletes have been able to do.

“We’re just proud of the girls sticking to our trademark which has been our pursuit of growth, and coming off last year … it would be pretty easy to go a different direction, but these girls after last year’s heartache have worn their heart on their sleeve and gone out and played with passion each week. All we’re hoping for is another effort like that tomorrow and we’ll be happy.”

Watts is no stranger to grand finals, having coached South Adelaide to its second flag back in 2019, then reached last year’s decider and leading the whole way up until the last minute. Though beaten on that day, Watts said the group of 2024 better understands what it is capable of achieving on its day.

“I think last year we probably didn’t know what we were capable of at that time of year at the start of the year, and we were just finding our potential and reaching it,” Watts said. “Where this year we feel we understand what we can do and how good we can be, and we’re just understanding that there’s just one team that’s stood in our way the whole time and I guess disrupted our makeup and how we go about it.

“We’ve just got to make sure that we play our style and get the game on our terms and just slightly adjust to what Norwood do.”

South Adelaide beat six of the other seven SANFLW teams, five of them twice, and just one side was successful on both occasions – Norwood. Watts admitted their past results against Norwood was a “huge part” of their planning ahead of tomorrow’s grand final and for some time, the South Adelaide mentor believed Norwood was his side’s biggest threat to the flag.

“We’ve been analysing those first two games a heap over the last probably six weeks and even adjusting what we’re doing at training to come up against them because we knew the style we play against Centrals and against Westies and against Glenelg held up really well, but when we’re playing against Norwood obviously we need to adjust slightly,” Watts said.

The elephant in the room for the supporters is the fact that the game is being played at Norwood Oval despite the Panthers finishing the season as minor premiers. While the decision was made pre-finals and requested by Channel 7 for broadcasting purposes at a venue with sufficient lighting, it has been a talking point amongst the various supporter bases.

Rather than get stuck into that debate, Watts said his side “don’t want to make any excuses”. However he was perplexed as to why the SANFLW Grand Final was not scheduled at the same venue as the men’s competitions, Under 18s and Under 16s boys – Adelaide Oval – were each year.

Regardless of the venue though, Watts said the key was to restrict Norwood’s prime movers including a couple of marking targets and hard-running ball-winner.

“I think we’ve seen the last two finals they’ve played, you have to restrict their wings,” he said. “Kiana Lee and Tahlita Buethke in particular, Jade Halfpenny as their key forward and she’ll probably roll through the mids. I think those three players are absolutely critical to them, and if we can restrict their impact, that will go a long way to use winning the game.”

South Adelaide has plenty of key players in its own right though, headlined by leading goalkicker Emily Brockhurst and SANFLW League Best and Fairest Nikki Nield. While Nield is obviously a star of the competition to anyone watching, Watts spoke of the experienced midfielder’s resilence this season and strong passion to win another flag.

“She’s amazing, she’s been amazing since her inception into our program back in 2017, 2018 when she was a junior,” Watts said. “Once stepping away from Freo at the start of the year, she’s come straight on and trained with us within two weeks and she deserves everything that she gets and hopefully she can win a premiership tomorrow and just cap it off because she works so hard.”

Missing out on the state team, Watts revealed that the trial game coincided with ankle surgery for an injury Nield had suffered the round prior, and would continue to feel the effects of that throughout the course of the season.

“The week before she’d torn her ankle and actually needed surgery to clean it out and needed a week off,” Watts said. “That’s the only week off she’s had for the whole year and she’s playing through injury pain for the rest of it. She’s just an incredible professional that puts team first and just does everything to get the job done, so for her to finally get that recognition was amazing, and hopefully she can get that bigger recognition on Saturday.”

South Adelaide takes on Norwood from 4:05pm local time or 4:35pm AEST to decide which club will lift the 2024 SANFLW premiership trophy aloft.