After slogging out a tough win against Burnie, the 2014 premiers went into grand final week knowing they would be without forward Tom Bennett and giant ruckman Daniel Roozendaal, arguably their most important player.

Waiting for them was an away trip against top-of-the-table Glenorchy, a team which had lost only two games all year and had enjoyed the luxury of a week off while North Launceston had been slugging it out against the Dockers.

Premiership coach Zane Littlejohn praised his team's focus and self-belief.

"One of the biggest things we spoke about Monday was the fact that we need to control what we can control and the Rooza situation was out of our control as coaches and players, so let's just concentrate on what we can do and the players did that and the coaches did that," he said.

Littlejohn said Roozendaal had the last word to the players before they ran out on the ground, and praised the ruckman for putting the team's needs before his own.

"During our breaks he came down and worked with (fellow ruckman) Alex Lee, obviously he's done a fair bit of mentoring with Alex and that just shows the person he is, the fact that he's willing to do that and not worry about himself."

One of the best good-news stories to come out of the grand final was the performance of 32-year old Josh Holland, who was persuaded by Littlejohn to leave his long-time club Latrobe at the end of 2014 to fill a gap in the North Launceston midfield.

Holland put on a display which drew parallels with Stewart Dew's 2008 AFL grand final heroics, with the first-year veteran's three goals and best-on-ground performance proving the difference between the two sides.

"I was just really pleased for him because there's a few doubters out there who said he wouldn't make it," Littlejohn said.

"We played a practice game earlier in the year and some players from opposition clubs said he wouldn't make it, he won't cope at this level and that type of thing, and he's used that as motivation all year so it was really good to see him get some reward."

Having not had the chance to play in a senior grand final, Littlejohn said the achievement of coaching consecutive premierships was "pretty special".

"I get a lot out of seeing people improve and having some involvement with that, I'm a teacher and that's my main role at the moment and I love that role.

"I love coaching and I love football so put those two things together and it's almost like it's a dream thing."