GEELONG coach Paul Hood is happy to claim underdog status for Sunday’s AFLW preliminary final against Adelaide but has stopped short of labelling the clash with the Crows as a “free hit”.
The Cats finished second in Conference B with three wins during their inaugural home-and-away season, while Adelaide, which is chasing its second premiership in three years, suffered just one loss in claiming top spot in Conference A.
“I’m pretty sure we consider ourselves as underdogs,” Hood said. “You look at both teams’ regular season form, and that’s kind of obvious.
“But it’s a new season. What’s happened before doesn’t really matter. The best team has to win the game on the day, so we’re just going to go out there and give it our best shot.
“We know that we face a really strong opposition, but we think we can bring a great contest and take the game to them and put our best foot forward and, hopefully, win the game.”
When the two teams met back in Round 3, Adelaide prevailed by 29 points at Norwood Oval.
“We look back at that game and know that we’ve played better than we played on that day in the games since,” Hood said.
“We’ve got some parts of our game that we need to pay attention to and tidy them up.
“In the game against Adelaide in Round 3, we had ten bad minutes of footy where they kicked four goals, and that was the difference on the day.
“We’ll work to make sure we don’t have ten bad minutes of footy this time.”
Geelong will have to make one change to the team that lost to Greater Western Sydney, with key forward Phoebe McWilliams undergoing surgery on a broken hand on Wednesday.
Young gun Becky Webster (ankle) and defender Anna Teague (back) will both be hoping to prove their fitness before the Cats fly to Adelaide on Saturday.
Twitter: @tom_king79
Click below to listen to Paul Hood’s media conference in its entirety.
GEELONG coach Paul Hood is happy to claim underdog status for Sunday’s AFLW preliminary final against Adelaide but has stopped short of labelling the clash with the Crows as a “free hit”.
The Cats finished second in Conference B with three wins during their inaugural home-and-away season, while Adelaide, which is chasing its second premiership in three years, suffered just one loss in claiming top spot in Conference A.
“I’m pretty sure we consider ourselves as underdogs,” Hood said. “You look at both teams’ regular season form and that’s kind of obvious.
“But it’s a new season. What’s happened before doesn’t really matter. The best team has to win the game on the day, so we’re just going to go out there and give it our best shot.
“We know that we face a really strong opposition, but we think we can bring a great contest and take the game to them and put our best foot forward and, hopefully, win the game.”
When the two teams met back in Round 3, Adelaide prevailed by 29 points at Norwood Oval.
“We look back at that game and know that we’ve played better than we played on that day in the games since,” Hood said.
“We’ve got some parts of our game that we need to pay attention to and tidy them up.
“In the game against Adelaide in Round 3, we had 10 bad minutes of footy where they kicked four goals and that was the difference on the day.
“We’ll work to make sure we don’t have 10 bad minutes of footy this time.”
Geelong will have to make one change to the team that lost to Greater Western Sydney, with key forward Phoebe McWilliams undergoing surgery on a broken hand on Wednesday.
Young gun Becky Webster (ankle) and defender Anna Teague (back) will both be hoping to prove their fitness before the Cats fly to Adelaide on Saturday.
Twitter: @tom_king79
Click below to listen to Paul Hood’s media conference in its entirety.
