While the Spirit were sitting second on the ladder, Kristi Harrower had just announced her retirement and the club’s form was inconsistent to say the least.

A players’ only meeting in early January was one of the catalysts for the Spirit making a run to tomorrow’s grand final against the Townsville Fire.

Not surprisingly, the Spirit player who led from the front at the meeting was star forward Kelsey Griffin.

“You have to have player meetings to make sure everyone is on the same page,’’ Griffin said this week.

“Usually it’s Kristi (Harrower) who runs those meetings because of her passion and leadership.

“This year we had to work out who would be that leadership voice without the luxury of having Kristi there.

“We had a few player meetings and it wasn’t a case of ‘hey, we need to get our act together’. It was more like ‘we are alright, we’re close, we’ll be fine’.

“We wanted to make sure we stayed confident and stayed together. That wasn’t hard because we have such a great group of people. It was amazing after one meeting just how much better we were out on the court.”

Griffin admits the 2014-15 season was far from smooth sailing for the Spirit.

“It’s been a rollercoaster for us all season… there’s been so much going on,’’ Griffin said.

“We’ve had inconsistency in our play and we didn’t know if Kristi was going to play.

“Once Kristi found out she was going to have this amazing thing happening in her life, as a group, we had to move forward and gel as a team knowing there was a huge gap without Kristi there.

“That didn’t happen until mid-season and even at the beginning of the year we didn’t have a proper pre-season together because Tessa (Lavey), Gabe (Richards) and Snelly (Belinda Snell) were away with the Opals and Kelly (Wilson) was coming back from surgery.

“It’s been hard to get all the pieces to fit. We knew we had the pieces, but getting everything right has been a rollercoaster.

“I’m really proud of how our team has handled everything. To get back to the grand final in a league that is getting better all the time is a great effort.”

The Spirit’s desire and hunger to win a third-straight title was questioned by coach Bernie Harrower this season. Griffin disagrees.

“When Bernie would bring that up in the locker room a few of us would stand up and disagree,’’ Griffin said.

“If it did look like that it was more a point of uncertainty of some players questioning themselves about what they were doing on the court.

“It was never a lack of want. That’s what I love about my team-mates, this team and why I keep coming back to Bendigo – the people and their attitude towards the game. We’re a semi-professional team and a lot of the girls work full-time and then give up their downtime with their family to train with the team.

“That says a lot about their want and desire to play. I will never question my team-mates when they are on court with me.”

Griffin, who has won the past two grand final MVP awards, was confident the Spirit won’t repeat their semi-final performance against the Fire.

“We played a bit timid in the semi-final and we know there are a lot of things we can fix from that game,’’ Griffin said.

“We missed a lot of shots that we would normally make… there were things on defence that we normally wouldn’t do.

“We were really tight, played as individuals and that’s not our team style of defence.

“We’re lucky we get another shot and we’re going to take full advantage of that opportunity.”

Sunday’s game starts at 3pm.