PORT Melbourne VFL Women’s coach Sean Buncle has made it clear has team is in it to win it when it comes to Sunday’s grand final, but maintains the premiership decider against Collingwood is a “great opportunity” that his playing group will enjoy.

The Borough went down to the Magpies three weeks ago by grand final day, with the Magpies running out 26-point winners at Victoria Park courtesy of a five goals to one first half. Despite that result, Port Melbourne was able to make its way back to the promised land with wins over the dangerous Carlton and then reigning premiers Essendon.

“We maybe let ourselves down that day in some areas, particularly near the start of the game,” Buncle said via the State of Play VFL/W Podcast. “I think since then we’ve really work on getting through this series and being better in those areas and we’re starting to go better. I think the response from the playing group has been awesome and they just show their determination and grit to address those areas which they have.

“Coming into this week we don’t think we need to look in the rearview mirror, it’s about looking forward. There’s no failure for us, this is just a great opportunity, it’s going to be something we really enjoy. We’re just really confident coming into it, and it’s going to be very much about us and focusing on that.”

The VFL Women’s season has provided many ups and downs, particular from a rolling ladder perspective. Three weeks prior to the finals series, Collingwood was seventh but finished as minor premiers, just one example of the evenness of the fixture.

Buncle said that high level of competition was a unique feature of the season and admitted he “absolutely loved it”.

“I think from my memory it’s the best competition I’ve been in from an evenness perspective,” he said. “It just feels like it’s exactly what you want it to be. The team that comes out and plays the hardest and does the work is the team that seems to get up each week which is awesome so you can never pencil anything in as a win or loss, which is what’s good for the competition.

“You don’t want a super dominant team, you don’t want a team that’s battling. You just want to know every week we’re going to see really good contest and I think that’s what brings the best out in teams because I think that’s where you can know that we need to find these areas to improve.”

Buncle said his team was not immune from having lowlights just like the highlights, but the unpredictability is what made it such an enjoyable year.

“For us it has been up and down, but all those moments you go through really take us to where we are today,” he said. “All the good, the bad and there was definitely some ugly there through some rounds. All that’s been valuable for us and we’ve loved it. I’m sure all the other teams have had the same sort of lessons and development through the evenness of the comp so it’s fantastic.”

Port Melbourne skipper Claire Dyett is looking forward to getting back out on ETU Stadium, playing three consecutive finals at the venue despite being the away team in both the preliminary final and the grand final.

“It’s really exciting,” Dyett said. “We all love coming to this ground, training on it three days a week, playing on it when we can when we’ve got home games. It’s a little fortress for us, it’s got it’s little kinks and it’s quirks, but it’s awesome, we love it.”

Port Melbourne knocked off Collingwood in the two sides’ previous meeting at the venue, running out 37-point winners, albeit back in Round 2. Dyett said that performance gave her side confidence that they could turn it around from their semi-final loss to the Magpies.

“We played really well in Round 2 so hopefully we can replicate that in some sort of way,” she said. “They obviously got the win over us in the first final, but I think we can definitely play a lot better than that, and we can bring what we brought in Round 2 and what we brought yesterday as well. But definitely a lot of confidence knowing that we can beat them at home.”