North Launceston coach Zane Littlejohn is confident his players can bounce back from their final round defeat at the hands of Burnie and turn that performance and result around in their TSL qualifying final at West Park on Saturday.
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Littlejohn did not believe that his playing group would suffer any psychological scarring after their ten-goal thrashing at the hands of an impressive Dockers outfit at Aurora Stadium a fortnight ago.
“Not with this group – I’ve said to them my planning as coach has gone through the roof this week and I’ve watched a lot of vision and put a plan together to help them understand that we can win this game,” Littlejohn said.
“And with our learning and development over the last two weeks at our training sessions, I have no doubt that their belief and confidence is that they can go down and win the game if we have our 22 contributors and we play our roles and we win the footy in a collective effort.”
Littlejohn said his players had pride in their performances and were disappointed with their last effort but had bounced back from situations like that before.
“I think people forget we lost to Devonport last round last year by 10 goals and then went to West Park the week after and lost - and then we won our next three and a premiership.
“So it is not the be all and end all – the difference in the result was that we were playing for a home final whereas last year it didn’t matter if we beat Devonport we would have still been going to West Park.
“That’s the beauty that the playing group were disappointed but they are words and what do they mean? – their actions are going to have to do the talking and they have to go and walk the walk.”
Ruckman Alex Lee will come into the side to replace the suspended Daniel Roozendaal.
Littlejohn said Hayden Goss and Brady Squires were knocking on the door for selection with Karlton Wadley to miss with a sore shoulder.
““I love this time of year and we want to make sure we sustain things at our footy club and don’t want to be one-hit wonders but sustain success so this is another good opportunity to build that,” he said.
Burnie will have a full-strength list for the final including coach Clint Proctor and Claye Hardy for a return from an extended injury lay-off and naming Ethan Jackson and Blair Rubock.
Lauderdale included Haydn Smith, Michael Cassidy and Matthew Smith for their elimination final against Devonport at Bellerive Oval.
Devonport named Ben Richmond, Brodie Deverell, Toby Ennis and Ben Hawkes.
