Strathfieldsaye coach Darryl Wilson said his side had responded positively to last week’s three-point loss to Eaglehawk in the BFNL second semi-final.
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The Storm coughed up a 30-point lead to the Hawks and missed several set shots in the final quarter.
Instead of preparing for a grand final, the Storm faces Golden Square in a cut-throat preliminary final.
“20 minutes after the siren we had to turn our focus to this week,’’ Wilson said.
“You can’t dwell on what happened, why it happened or what could have happened.
“You have to move on to what’s next and that’s what we did.
“Obviously, the boys were disappointed, but so they should have been.
“The boys re-focused pretty quickly and trained accordingly this week. You can’t change what’s behind you.
“We’ve got the belief we can do it, it’s just a matter of going out there and executing it.
“You’re only as good as your last player, so we need a contribution from all 22 players.”
The Storm has had more inside 50s than their opponents in both finals matches, but have struggled to make the most of their opportunities.
“We’ve talked about making our inside 50s count on the scoreboard,’’ Wilson said.
“We can’t keep going in there like that and not scoring. We can’t go in too wide, so we’ve worked on a few things to improve that.
“We’ve got the power to do it, we just need to execute it.”
Wilson said his team’s inability to hit targets forward of centre was more mental than physical.
“Finals change the mindset of players and they tend to put more pressure on themselves,’’ Wilson said.
“You have to back yourself to hit your targets. In this day and age you’re better off kicking the ball to grass than turning the ball over in the air.
“You turn the ball over in the air these days and the ball is rebounded to the other end of the ground very quickly. Years ago that didn’t happen.”
Saturday’s preliminary final starts at 3.10pm at the QEO.
