Skipton coach Chris Banwell | The Courier | August 24, 2023 - video Dailymotion

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Watch Skipton coach Chris Banwell | The Courier | August 24, 2023 - The Courier on Dailymotion

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00:00 Always exciting to be playing finals and just a few days away.

00:05 That's right, yes, very exciting to be playing finals.

00:07 It's been an excellent year so far from all the boys, but this is why we do all the hard

00:12 work obviously to get to the finals and looking forward to getting into it.

00:16 That first round loss has never left the mind of the boys, as it's a tight one against Cairn

00:22 and Linton.

00:23 It almost took that first round loss to spark things into action after a slow pre-season.

00:30 Yes, a bit of a slow pre-season and very much a reality check that we had against Cairn and

00:35 Linton.

00:36 Since then, the boys haven't looked back.

00:38 They've taken that feedback on board.

00:39 They got together as a group and realised that our effort earlier on in the year probably

00:43 wasn't good enough.

00:44 We've definitely made amends for it.

00:47 We've ended up knocking off some pretty high quality teams.

00:51 We can probably neutralise that loss in round one with a few of the other scouts that we've

00:56 managed to get this year.

00:57 I know it's a long way back, but it is worth talking about because sometimes it takes a

01:02 result like that to give the whole season some impetus.

01:05 That win over Gordon, that was a real confidence booster.

01:09 It was an important time.

01:10 I know a lot has happened since then, but it came at a time in the season where you

01:14 probably just needed that little bit of a kick along.

01:17 With a few of our key personnel out in games like that, it was fantastic for a bit of a

01:22 different looking group to come together and to have a win like that against Gordon.

01:27 Against the odds really fortified the group moving forward.

01:32 We've been in some tight situations this year and the group knows that when we play our

01:35 brand of football and they stick together, we can get the job done.

01:39 Tell us what it's like to be a coach going into a final series.

01:44 You can only do so much and a lot of the preparation has already been done at this point.

01:49 That's right.

01:50 We won't have to run the boys too much on the track in terms of getting the fitness

01:53 up.

01:54 They're as fit as what they're going to get.

01:55 It's just about managing the boys and making sure that we can implement our game plan and

02:00 give the lads the best opportunity on the Tuesday and the Thursday nights.

02:04 Maybe a bit of a recovery on the Monday, but this is what we do all the hard work during

02:08 the middle of winter for.

02:09 We put ourselves in a position, so we want to make sure that we capitalise on it.

02:13 The Skipton's played in finals.

02:14 Obviously, they made the second leg of the finals last year.

02:17 They weren't far away from going to a preliminary final.

02:21 A lot of the players are still in the team.

02:25 What's the feeling among those?

02:26 There must be a real desire to not only go that far again, but to make the most of this

02:32 opportunity and go that step further.

02:34 Absolutely.

02:35 Even going back, the boys that were involved three years ago, ones that have missed out

02:38 on finals, guys that have played in losing finals, guys that have played in games where

02:42 they've won that first week.

02:45 You can only take it one week at a time, as the old cliche goes, but it's really good

02:48 to have a number of boys on the list that have had finals experiences, had some good

02:52 wins, had some unfortunate losses.

02:54 It's nice to know that we have a group that's not new to them.

02:58 We put on top of that a few of the tight results against some high-quality teams that we've

03:03 had this year.

03:04 We're very excited to get into week one next week.

Skipton coach Chris Banwell | The Courier | August 24, 2023

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