Brisbane isn’t going to feel sorry for itself for too long.

Lions AFLW coach Craig Starcevich says his side will “refuse to be upset about life” despite getting belted by 40 points by North Melbourne the 2025 Grand Final.

It marked a fifth loss in the premiership decider for Brisbane under Starcevich, with Saturday night’s result the second-heaviest loss in AFLW grand final history.

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Nonetheless, it’s been a golden period for the Lions including the club playing in the last seven grand finals combined across both AFLW and AFL programs combined.

And Starcevich, despite acknowledging some “monumental blunders” would haunt his group, had the upmost faith it’d reunite and bounce back in 2026.

“This is going to hurt and it’s going to hurt some individuals more than others. But as a group and a collective, our footy club is super strong and a great place to work,” he said after the game.

“That doesn’t change, we keep showing up at the big dance in both our programs, so that’s a real strong point.

“But we just said to the group, we just refuse to be upset about life tonight. Just refuse to be too annoyed with things. Just get on with life and be happy and move onto the next challenge.

“That’s easier said than done, but that’s you’re only way forward, really. Just to put on a brave face and move forward. That’s your only choice.”

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There was a particularly crucial passage of the game that Shannon Campbell will struggle to watch back.

Campbell in the second quarter gave away a costly 100m penalty to Kate Shierlaw that gifted North Melbourne a certain goal and extended the Kangaroos’ lead to 10 points after a competitive first quarter.

North then stacked on two more goals to take full ascendancy by half-time.

“(Campbell is) OK. Watching the game back is going to be painful viewing for a couple of them, because there were some monumental sort of blunders there along the way, with giving away 50s and so forth,” Starcevich added.

“But that happens in a footy person’s career. You just don’t want it to happen in the really big game.

“They’re great people, our people, so they’ll absorb it, and it’ll be really hard. You’ll have to sit with it for months before you can get back and rectify things. That’s just life as a footballer.”

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It extended North Melbourne’s epic winning streak to 27 games and marked the back-to-back premiers’ second-straight win over Brisbane in the grand final.

Starcevich said North’s ability to absorb pressure then go up a level and hurt you the other way was what separated Darren Crocker’s juggernaut team from the rest of the competition.

“(The Kangaroos) were really, really good with absorbing pressure. We threw the kitchen sink at them from a pressure point of view,” the Lions coach added.

“Then they ramped that up again in the second quarter, and it was like, ‘whoa’, the level just kept going up and up.

“Their ability to get from something that looks like a really nasty, contested situation, and then get it quickly out by hand, and then someone out in space and they’re gone is elite. Like, seriously elite.

“So, full credit to them, because there’s always someone there waiting for it, and they trust each other … that’s really hard to counter.”