With NTFA division one approaching its second week of finals, The Examiner caught up with the coaches who fell short of making the cut.
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Bridport
Season: Sixth place - six wins, nine losses, one draw.
Coach: Greg Latham
What worked: "The introduction of new players to the club, those who it's their first year there and that's on and off the field.
"For example, the Saville brothers, Tom Barnett, Taylor Stone, Dylan Baker, Dylan Clayton have all been good on and off the field in terms of supporting the club and doing various things around the club to help out.
"Jack Deacon is new this year as well and he's been a revelation down back for us."
What didn't: "Quite clearly injuries have cruelled us throughout the year which means we haven't been able to gel on field and fully implement a game style that we tried to implement given lack of training numbers and then changes from week to week on a Saturday."
Meander Valley
Season: Seventh - Five wins, 10 losses, one draw.
Coach: Damien Rhind
What worked: "The further development of our one-club culture and the recruitment of a younger tier of players ranging from the ages of 17-24 to hopefully get those guys to stick around and build for the future.
"Off-field from a club point of view, improvement has been great as well from a committee standpoint and some of the individual improvement certainly stands out this year."
What didn't: "I can put it down to two games which changed the fortunes of our year and those were the first-round losses to Perth and Bridport.
"We beat Evandale, we beat St Pats, and then we came into Perth and should've won that game, and then into Bridport.
"If we win those two games the season looks a bit different and the confidence changes and the mindset changes."
READ MORE: Sun to set on Rhind's time at Meander
Perth
Season: Eighth - four wins, 11 losses, one draw.
Coach: Danny Bennett
What's worked: "Just how our young group has connected together.
"Obviously we've had quite a few re-sign on some two-year deals [over the past month] so as a group moving forward that's been a massive bonus for us.
"We've certainly tested some good sides, I think the East Coast game we went down by 30-odd points and had our opportunities to win that, so we've proven that we can match it with some of the top teams, it's just about being more consistent."
What didn't: "It's back to that age limit that we've got, they don't play four quarters of footy at the minute and we struggle to get that four-quarter game.
"It's tough with a young group and experience is the key but you look back at Lilydale six or seven years ago, they were in the same boat and you see what they've done over the last three to four years."
Evandale
Season: Ninth - two wins, 13 losses, one draw.
Coach: Sam Bouwman
What worked: "We've done really well in getting a few kids to the club, we've regenerated some of that youth.
"Our off-field stuff has been really strong and we've kept fronting up week after week and the energy has been really good."
What didn't: "Our game plan that we started with was probably a bit too hard for the group we had to execute so we did take a long time, we haven't really managed to get that right throughout the year - trying to do some things we weren't capable of at the time.
"We weren't able to get a functioning forward-line system going either."
UTAS
Season: 10th - zero wins, 15 losses, one draw.
Coach: Brodie Tiernan
What worked: "We've got a very young group so the experience is going to help a lot of guys and it will be good for them in two or three years if they are still around hopefully.
"We changed our game up and how they were able to adapt and play that, we were happy with it. Against the tougher teams they played a lot better than they did against winnable games, so the way they approached those games was pretty good.
"They stayed pretty positive throughout the year and had a good attitude ... if they stick around and keep improving, they will start to win soon."
What didn't: "There were a couple of games where they probably thought they were going to win and then they turned up and there were probably about five blokes playing [well].
"I guess that's on the flipside that we didn't have that attitude against the good teams, but we actually played OK - it wasn't reflected on the scoreboard but we didn't play too badly.
"It's obviously disappointing not to get a win which is a bit frustrating, but just one of the areas that we need to make sure we get right is taking our opportunities.
"Throughout the year there were probably three or four games where we were in winnable positions and we just let it slip."
- A premier division edition will be in The Examiner later in the week