We Won!

Yesterday my girls played a preliminary final. The winning team plays the grand final next week, the loser packs up their netball gear til next year.

And we won!

I was a bit surprised at my reaction. In that I didn't react. I have mixed feelings. Don't get me wrong, I'm so pleased for my team, and thrilled for them to get to play in a grand final, and I hope they win. But.... there is always a but! I'm thinking (quite selfishly really) about how this impacts me. This has been the hardest year of netball coaching ever for me this year. I'm at the point where I'm ready for it to be over. Now that we have made the grand final I have some tough decisions that I can't avoid any longer. And I have made my decision, I think, well sort of... I know what I need to do to win a premiership, and I know what I need to do to include all members of the team. What I don't know is if I can achieve both, or if I am willing to take the risk.

Yesterdays game was close. A bit too close. I had my plan, I had decided who would go where before the game started, what changes I would make, who would come off and when. Then at three quarter time that plan went out the window. I had to decide whether to take the risk of sticking to my plan, or put my strongest team on and win the game, and I discovered that I didn't have the strength to stick to my plan. That meant that one of my girls only got one quarter instead of two.

I have two players in my team who aren't quite up to the standard of the others. One of them is improving at lightning speed, and if we had a few more weeks I feel sure that she would be up to the challenge. The other I have coached now for three years. Three very. long. years. I have encouraged, chastised, yelled, directed (both physically and verbally), demonstrated, encouraged some more, taken her aside and worked one on one....and she just doesn't get it. She has improved but she is never going to really get it.

So what to do? I think I know what I need to do. It's just hard, and it's doing my head in.

I should be excited about reaching a grand final. And I am. Sort of. In a way. But I will be really excited when it's all over.