Coburg women on the verge of a finals berth

The Coburg women’s team is on track to make a finals appearance in their inaugural season.

With the finals just around the corner, the Lions are sitting in fourth on the ladder with the side facing the Eastern Devils for the first time tomorrow.

The Inner Sanctum spoke to Coburg women’s player Amy Mitchener on the potential finals berth, as well as the sides first game at Piranha Park.

Sitting in fourth and being a game in front of fifth place, the side will have to win this weekend to secure a place in the top four. The match up against the Eastern Devils will be a fourth vs sixth battle.

“At this point in time we need to basically beat someone that’s above us on the ladder,” Mitchener said.

“We probably achieved part of that goal by winning against Tyabb in our last match because they were above us on the ladder on percentage, so if we lost we would have probably been fighting for a spot based on percentage.

“We’re yet to play the Eastern Devils because the first [COVID] lockdown kind of pushed that back for us. So we don’t play them until the last game of the season.

“We’re looking forward to getting to play them and knowing how they play because we obviously haven’t played them yet.”

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Due to the renovations at Coburg’s home base Piranha Park, the Lions were forced to create a home away from home.

The Lions recently got to play on their home deck for the first time against Seaford. Although they didn’t come away with the win, it was still a special occasion.

“It was really really good, it was so good to be in our own space, playing the way we want to play,” Mitchener said.

“The oval is massive which is a huge benefit for us because we just like to run… if only we could have gotten the win, but it was [still] really special for us.

“It was a really good atmosphere. There wasn’t a huge crowd but just within our team and our coaches, supporters, volunteers it was just a massive hype, and we were just so excited to get back out and play on our ground essentially.”

It’s been a tough first season for Coburg, having faced two lockdowns interrupting the season as well as one during pre-season.

However, the Lions were well equipped to take on the second lockdown after having home programs set up during the lockdown in early June.

“The first week, because it was only going to be a seven day lockdown initially we kind of chilled out a little bit had a bit of a rest week,” Mitchener said.

“We still got out and about, just out for walks and stuff and kind of set up a group page and kept in touch with each other via photos or something we’re doing.

“We did a Zoom workout, one during that first week and then on the Thursday. When it was announced it was going to be another week, our high performance team kind of set us up a running program back out.

“Did a couple of 5km runs during that second week and we took sweaty selfies to prove that we’ve done it. We also had a Strava running group, so whoever clocked up the most kilometres that week, they were the queen of lockdown for our team.”

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