Hurstbridge women’s coach Mischa Morgan-Curry says her side is looking forward to the challenge of an unexpected finals berth when it plays in the Mirvac Division 3 Women’s elimination final.
The Bridges finished fifth on the ladder to claim a finals spot, despite only entering a senior women’s team into the NFNL for the first time this season.
Having done the hard yards over the off-season, Morgan-Curry – who serves as a player-coach – said she was proud of how far the club has come in such a short period of time.
“We’d always wanted a senior women’s team at Hurstbridge. We tried a few years ago and we never got the numbers and it didn’t really work,” Morgan-Curry told NFNL.org.au.
“We were originally going to try for 2020 and then we thought we’d just give it a go this year and see if we can get enough girls to make a team.
“We thought we’d just get graded into Division 3 and have some fun and now here we are.”
Finishing in fifth position on the ladder with six wins, including four in a row leading into their first finals campaign, Morgan-Curry is pleasantly surprised with her side’s form.
“Everyone’s surprised that we made it into the finals and we’re all pretty excited,” Morgan-Curry said.
“We made it to finals and we definitely weren’t aiming for it. We weren’t expecting it.”
Hurstbridge will meet fourth-placed Montmorency in Sunday’s elimination final at Epping Recreation Reserve.
The Bridges should take confidence into the game given their recent hot form. They were also winners in their last match against the Magpies back in Round 6, where the Bridges came away 5.5 (35) to 3.5 (23) victors.
Regardless of the result on Sunday, Morgan-Curry says the season has been a success for Hurstbridge.
“We’re going into this game thinking we’ve already made it to finals and that’s a feat in itself. We don’t really mind if we don’t make it any further than this,” she said.
With a mixture of experienced and new players, Morgan-Curry believes her side has come together in the best possible way.
“From the start of the season until now, every player has grown. We’ve grown as a team and we’ve grown individually,” she said.
“We’ve got players with football backgrounds and they’ve obviously had a big impact, but we’ve also got players who didn’t have any prior experience with football and they’ve come a long way too.
“There is no cliques and we haven’t had any drama with any of the players and we’re all friends which is amazing.”
The first bounce of the Mirvac Division 3 Women’s elimination final between Hurstbridge and Montmorency is at 10:00am on Sunday at Epping Recreation Reserve.
