mmg.com.au

What a difference a few weeks make — just ask Seymour skipper Brent Colbert.

‘‘Two weeks before the finals we didn’t even deserve to be playing finals,’’ he said.

‘‘And yet here we are talking about the disappointment of losing a grand final.’’

And it was disappointment for the dual premiership player and first-year captain.

‘‘It’s sort of hard to come so far, you just want to win.

‘‘Yes, we’ve done it the hard way and they (Tatura) might have been favourites but going into the game we thought we’d done the hard yards and we deserved it.’’

Those hard yards started with coach Bernie Haberman putting the acid on his players after the shock loss at Kyabram.

The effect was two strong wins against lowly Shepparton Swans and Bears.

‘‘Habes forced us to just have a good hard look at ourselves, saying ‘what are you going to get out of this year’,’’ Colbert said.

‘‘Then we beat Mooroopna in that first final and that’s when we realised we were good enough to take this up.’’

Colbert himself has revelled in the freedom playing at half back has given him, especially the running game of which he is such a skilled exponent.

That run wasn’t able to be utilised until later in Sunday’s game, but he isn’t dwelling on the performance of himself or the team — there’s next year to look forward to.

‘‘We haven’t really had those conversations yet (within the team) because we kept winning but I think having a finals series like that can only be good.

‘‘I know I’ve tasted a fair bit of success at this club and a few of the boys would’ve seen what the last month of footy was like both on and off the field.

‘‘They’ll want to be a part of that again.’’

And as Colbert has said before, many of the younger players now have precious first-hand experience of what it takes to win big games.

‘‘If we bombed out and didn’t play finals, a lot of these blokes wouldn’t have experienced this,’’ he said.

‘‘This is how you become a better player, by standing up on this stage.

‘‘Their last three weeks have been fantastic, they’ve given themselves a bit of a reputation now and those young blokes have shown they can stand up.’’