AFTER Gold Coast kept its season alive with a win over the GWS Giants, their coach Cam Joyce praised the way his team went about the win.

“I thought it was a really professional performance to be honest” Joyce said.

“We’ve been looking for that probably over the last month a little bit, and I think even at quarter time when it’s a point each, what sort of response do you get? How do we tackle that? Obviously a lot has been said about the game and other bits and pieces, how do you keep refocussing? I thought the girls did a great job at just being able to reset, focus on the now and let the rest take care of itself.”

With the wet conditions at play on the Gold Coast last night, Joyce did admit he was tempted to switch up the strategy at times and play more traditional wet weather footy.

“I think that’s us evolving too a bit, in terms of the way we want to play,” he said. “When I started we were very much just get it and boot it forward, so that’s something that we’ve been trying to sort of get at is being able to use handball, being able to chain the ball at the right time, kick the ball at the right time, and I’ve sort of backed off on that and let the girls sort of try to work through it.

“It’s hard to on every single occasion to say kick that one, handball that one, handball that one twice, handball that one three times, so the girls have just got to keep working through it. Sometimes we over use it, but we’re going to be a better team if we’re able to do that and do that consistently and clean because we’ll get some better entries.”

He was pleased with how his midfielders performed last night despite missing a key cog to that puzzle in Lucy Single.

“GWS’ pressure has been very, very good,” Joyce said. “So that was something even pre-game about us being able to match and raise that, being able to absorb their pressure and obviously play the way we want to, try and chain the ball at times or go forward aggressively with the ball.”

“I thought Claudia Whitfort’s game was just outstanding, just some of our drive from the contest was just unbelievable. But I thought everyone also did their bit in that. Obviously Charlie Rowbottom, Drenno, Ella Maurer coming into that and then Maddy Brancatisano, to be honest her last month is trending the right way. She’s going to be a good player for us.”

Gold Coast’s destiny is very much in their own hands now, but Joyce said that as much as that is exciting, he and his team have other things to worry about first.

“It’s exciting no doubt,” he said. “Like I said before it’s the balance between being able to just play the game versus worrying too much about the outcome and the permutations, combinations. Our focus is going to really be on recovering well, preparing well. We like going to Mackay, the heat suits us, so I think we’re looking forward to playing the Bombers for the first time.”