DESPITE throwing the “kitchen sink” at North Melbourne in Saturday night’s AFL Women’s Grand Final from a pressure perspective, Brisbane coach Craig Starcevich said he was in awe of what the Roos were able to do, whilst still being “immensely proud” of his group.

“They were really, really good with absorbing pressure,” Starcevich said post-match. “We threw the kitchen sink at them from a pressure point of view and then they ramped it up in the second quarter and it was like ‘woah’ and the level just kept going up and up.

“But their ability to get from something that looks like a really nasty contested situation and then get it quickly out by hand and then someone out in space and they’re gone is elite. Like seriously elite. Full credit to them because there’s always someone there waiting for it and they trust each other, but its in the hands, out of congestion, bang, out and gone. That’s really hard to counter.”

The Lions booted the first goal of the game before North Melbourne responded with nine of the last 10 goals to come away with the 9.2 (56) to 2.4 (16) victory at Ikon Park in what was North Melbourne’s 27th straight win, and second consecutive flag.

Starcevich said the immediate feeling was “obvious disappointment” but he could not question the effort of his playing group, nor take credit away from the juggernaut that is North Melbourne.

“The last 10 weeks that we’ve put together has been enormous to get ourselves into this position but we can still see where the gap is and we haven’t bridged it yet unfortunately,” he said. “We thought we had, we thought we had the game to really challenge them but unfortunately not. North are really, really good at absorbing pressure and then going forward and hurting you themselves.”

A crucial moment in the game was a 100m penalty against experienced defender Shannon Campbell in the second term, before late contact from Jade Ellenger handed Jenna Bruton a 50m penalty and subsequent goal in the second half. Campbell was “distraught” on the final siren, and was Starcevich said she was “okay”, rewatching the game would be “painful viewing” for some.

“Watching the game’s going to be painful viewing for a couple of them because there were some monumental blunders the along the way with giving away 50s and so forth, but that happens in a footy person’s career,” Starcevich said.

“You just don’t want it to happen in the really big games, so they’re great people our people. They’ll absorb it and it will be really hard. You’ve got to sit with it for months before you can get back and rectify things. That’s just life as a footballer.”

When asked about whether it was possible another team could get to the Roos’ level, Starcevich said “definitely”.

“Everyone’s gettable,” he said. “I thought our formline was on the rise … we’ve won nine and lost a bad one tonight. I thought that was heading in the right direction, I thought we were ready to challenge.

“They’ve just won 27 straight and they’ve dipped a bit and then they’ve gone again now. You look at tonight’s game and you think ‘wow that’s quite the level’ but no one gets any younger, things happen, things change and sides catch up.

“I think the competition this year, some of the games we’ve played in have been super in terms of speed and intensity and skill level and all those sorts of things that you like about a really high quality game of AFL. I definitely think that’s been the case. I just see us playing more of those games against different opponents and people will catch up.”