ANALYSIS
IT’S amazing how being perceived as an underdog can lift the weight of the world from the shoulders.
Wentworth will not be feeling relief from Saturday’s second SFNL senior football semi-final win, but rather vindication.
Vindication of those who doubted them and vindication maybe of their own self doubt, even if they won’t openly agree with this.
But I can assure you that over the past few weeks Wentworth would have been looking at everything to see what has changed for them and every player would have had some doubt creep into their heads about where their season may possibly have been heading.
I was speaking with a few people during the week about who we thought would come out on top on Saturday between Wentworth and Irymple.
I have stood firm on my thoughts of Wentworth, even during their rough patch, that they are still the best side in the competition at their best.
I think this still surprised a lot of these people as I honestly think I was the only one of the group that really thought Wentworth would still get up and win.
And don’t get me wrong, I can understand why.
Irymple were hitting some serious form and Wentworth were struggling. But when you look deeper into what was happening with Wentworth, this is why I still had them booking their spot in the grand final.
They are a side that are still mentally finding themselves, and this is not a dig at Wentworth or how mentally strong they are at all. This is just simply an analysis based on them understanding how good they actually are and how quickly they have had to adjust to this thought, and how to deal with expectations throughout the season.
I have written over the past few weeks about the slump Wentworth were facing as purely a mental one.
Only last week, I hoped they would throw off the shackles and just play their natural brand of football.
If we look at the recent losses Wentworth have had, their first was against a second-placed side in Irymple back in round 13, hardly a lowering of colours as it was bound to happen at some stage that they would lose.
They then met and lost to an Imps team who were still fighting for a finals spot. They arguably had more to play for than Wentworth.
Over the next few weeks they were up and down, losing to Red Cliffs and Robinvale Euston and beating up on a lowly South Mildura side.
The results alone don’t tell the whole story though, as this was a team and a club that were merely trying to find themselves again and learn about who they really were.
Across the field they are brilliant on every line, so ability has never been the question or the doubt for Wentworth. It was the mental capacity to work through and deal with the expectation now put on them both internally and externally that I believe was the issue.
It would be fair to say that they had exceeded even their own expectations on how well their season would have gone, as playing coach Wade Hancock said prior to the second semi-final: “If you had told me prior to the season that we would finish 12-4, I would jump at it.”
This is not to say that Hancock and his troops weren’t aware of the talent they had, it was just simply noting that after two unfinished seasons that no team really had an idea of where they were really at to begin with.
Knowing Wade personally and having had many chats about his side’s chances before and during the season, he knew they were well and truly strong enough to make the finals. It was just whether this team was ready to compete right now for a flag.
So while it has been an amazing journey thus far, it may have actually happened sooner than expected.
So with this in mind, the mindset of where they were at, at the start of the year, to where they were after round 12, needed to be adjusted from them thinking that we are good enough, to now we are definitely good enough and right where we belong.
This now creates a change of expectations, and this is a big change mentally when the penny quickly drops and you now know you are not just here to make up the numbers anymore. You go from minimal pressure of expectation and essentially just riding the wave and enjoying the moment to now an expectation of we are good enough to win every game and potentially the flag, so our standards now have to be set higher. That’s a very big shift.
The biggest relief coming into the second semi on Saturday at Kenny Park for Hancock and his team would have been them being seen as the underdog. It allowed them to remove the pressure of expectation and take the game on with nothing to lose, similar to their mindset at the start of the year.
And when you have a team as talented as Wentworth playing with nothing to lose, the shackles naturally come off, just as Irymple found in the first quarter. Wentworth were back and enjoying their football again, essentially riding the wave.
Now they have two weeks to rest, recover and simply enjoy the moment.
Again, my advice would be to go in and enjoy the day, be positive and confident in what you are, which is a very good football team.
Don’t be afraid of losing, be excited about the prospect of winning and expect things during the game to not go your way. It’s how you handle these moments that will determine the outcome.
This season and your success may have come earlier than you expected, however you deserve to be exactly where you are.
Now the pressure turns to Irymple. What will they do this week?
Will they go back into their shells and be scared of losing, or will they be hungry to avenge their loss and move forward to the big dance?
Whatever happens, it’s just great to finally have finals footy back.
