Great Southern Football League Women’s win country championships division two premiership and earn promotion

Great Southern women’s coach Collin Pass credited a full team effort after winning the Nutrien Ag Solutions Country Football Championships division two title in Mandurah on Friday. Having been demoted after a disappointing campaign last year, Great Southern proved they have the mettle to grapple with WA country football’s best. They booked their spot in the final with Esperance at Rushton Park after finishing second on the ladder with a 2-1 win-loss record before seeing off their southern rivals with a 3.1 (19) to 1.0 (6) victory. Great Southern conceded the first goal of the decider but majors to Megan Green and Kiahn Perry helped swing the game back in their favour before running out 13-point winners. Hard-nosed inside midfielder Kathryn Slattery (Railways) was named best on ground medal in the grand final and awarded an All-Star jersey alongside key forward Green (Royals) and goal-sneak Chelsea Geddes (Railways). The victory means Great Southern will return to division one at next year’s tournament. An elated Pass praised his team-oriented players and attributed the victory to the balanced contributions from the entire squad. “We genuinely played a team game; we used everybody, everybody contributed,” he said. “Every single person played the team role. “We spread the ball out wide, we ran it and we worked hard for each other. “I was absolutely ecstatic with the way we worked together and we just never gave up, it was really, really good.” Having defeated Esperance by two points in a thrilling pool game, Pass insisted he always had confidence his side would notch a grand final triumph. Slattery, Perry, Emma Gooderson, Claire McIntyre and Pippa Wilson were all superb in the grand final triumph. “We got to see what they had and we didn’t really play the game style that we wanted to against them,” he said. “So I felt confident that if we played a simple man-up game in the midfield and run it out wide, we would get over top of them. “I was fairly confident going into the grand final against them.” Great Southern also secured a victory against North Pilbara on day one to clinch a decider berth, before losing to the previously winless Goldfields on day two. Pass believed that shock loss to Goldfields was one they needed to recalibrate ahead of the grand final. “It definitely put a lot more thought into players’ actions, so they manned up as opposed to letting their opponents run free,” he said. “So yes, (the loss) definitely helped us to hit reset and to focus on the small things, which we were doing really well up until that point.”