IT WAS a tough ending to a back-and-forth game for the Blues, who fell agonisingly short to the Giants by two points on Saturday afternoon at Henson Park in Sydney.
Despite being in the competition all day, AFLW Senior Coach Mathew Buck knows what his team needs to work on to move past the result on the road.
Here's what he had to say.
On the game overall:
"It got really tight and exciting in the end and it felt like we nearly pinched it to be honest. But credit to the Giants: I thought it was their game from the very start and they deserved the win I think, they played well.
"I just had a quick chat to the coaches, and there'll be plenty of stuff we need to work on absolutely and there was some stuff in there that we thought was really good as well. That's the journey that we're on at the moment: we're just trying to iron that stuff out."
On Brea Moody's performance:
"I thought she was gutsy, I thought all of our leaders stood up really well today. Unfortunately we couldn't get over the line, but 'Moods' was absolutely dominant in there and gave us absolutely everything. She's exhausted now after a big, big game but she's a great ruck and did a great job today."
On covering the two injuries on Jess Dal Pos and Jess Good:
"Obviously 'Moods', we had to pull her out of the forward line to put her into the ruck, so up stepped Mia Austin. I thought Mia had some real growth today as an individual player. Imogen Milford came into the side and hit the scoreboard which was fantastic as well, so it was good to see them be able to fill that gap."
On looking at the final two games of the home-and-away season:
"There's two games left to go in this season and we're well and truly in the hunt so we'll dust ourselves off from this one and look forward to going to Windy Hill next week."
On separating the team from the rest of the competition:
"I can't control what everyone does, that's pretty clear, so we go after us. We had some fundamental errors today so I think it's as simple as we clean up our fundamentals a little bit and keep backing ourselves in. I think when we play positive footy we look at our best."
