But coach Craig Sneddon wants more of the same for the whole 80 minutes tomorrow, when the Spirit host the North Harbour Hibiscus in the Farah Palmer Cup Championship quarterfinal.
"I guess it was a bit of a heartbreak for the girls. I know they were pretty gutted about it," Sneddon said.
"But it’s one of those ones where, if you take the result out of it and look at what we actually put on the park in our performance, yeah, we’re really stoked.
"I felt we stepped up in a lot of areas, particularly around our breakdown work and just our aggression in the tackle.
"To be fair, we sort of nailed it apart from ... that last three minutes."
He has made two changes to his starting line up for the quarterfinal. Young Charlotte Va’afusuaga will start on the right wing and Pesalini Lave-Heehau gets the nod at loosehead prop for the first time.
"We just see [Lave-Heehau] as someone who adds a bit of power and strength.
"We want to use her on the carry ... Instead of bringing in on off the bench, we just want to try use it earlier in the game and then, yeah, look to speed the game up as we go."
The Spirit will take confidence from last week’s game against the table-topping Cyclones, and beating the Hibiscus 37-12 in Dunedin two weeks ago.
They have been building nicely throughout the season, and Sneddon was pleased to see the team’s rise.
"Last week again we stepped up from our North Harbour performance, so it’s just we want to replicate the same again.
"Keep stepping up and just keep getting better, and better, and the score will be what it will be.
"But hopefully if we execute what we want to do, then yeah, we should come out on the right side of it."
Farah Palmer Cup
The team
Otago Spirit: Sheree Hume, Charlotte Va’afusuaga, Cheyenne Cunningham, Keely Hill, Jamie Church, Maia Joseph, Georgia Cormick, Bella Rewiri-Wharerau, Leah Miles, Zoe Whatarau, Julia Gorinski, Kayley Johnson, Eilis Doyle, Tegan Hollows, Pesalini Lave-Heehau.
Reserves: Hannah Lithgow, Isla Pringle, Paige Church, Ella Gomez, Grace Hastie, Abigail Paton, Oceana Campbell, Atawhai Hotene.
