The Yass Magpies under 16s suffered a disappointing grand final loss on Sunday, going down to the North Canberra Bears 50-12 at GIO Stadium in the Zone 2 decider.
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The Bears were the minor premiers and had been beating teams consistently by the mercy rule all year. However Yass managed to lower their colours at Walker Park mid-season and after a morale boosting 12-10 win over Goulburn in the preliminary final last week were not short of confidence.
Unfortunately the Bears, who had the previous week off, came out firing. And after Harry Morris, Rhys Wilson and Josh Barker were hampered with injuries in the early stages of the game, the score-line quickly blew out.
Brown, who has coached the boys for the last two years, told the Tribune he felt for his charges.
"We always knew it was going to be a challenge, the Bears have been the benchmark all year, and then when we lost a couple of blokes early through injury it just made things that little bit tougher," he said.
"Grand final losses are never easy to take and as disappointed as I am, I can only imagine how gutted the boys are, but that's footy.
"They've just got to be proud of their season and use that disappointment to motivate them next year."