WHILE winning the Football NSW Women’s State League minor premiership on Sunday is something Western NSW Mariners FC coach Mick Godbier rates as a “nice little feather in the cap”, he is already thinking ahead to something bigger.

For Godbier, who makes no secret of the fact he is a coach that relishes winning, taking out the major semi-final and the grand final which will follow are his main goals.

“To get the minor premiership after 20-21 games in a season is a nice little feather in the cap, but now we have to get our girls refocused,” he said.

“Getting to the grand final and winning it is very much our goal.”

Though Godbier knows his side still needs to produce quality football to win the premiership, he has every reason to be confident.

Instead of playing Southern Districts twice on the weekend to catch up on a washed-out match, only one game was contested.

The Mariners won that 6-2 which meant that even though they played one less game than every other team who made the finals, they still finished three points clear of Bankstown in the minor premiership.

“I’ve been in discussions with people higher up than me and I didn’t get an answer [about rescheduling the washed-out match]. But rather than harp on about that, the way we look at it is that we are minor premiers and we won yesterday [Sunday],” Godbier said.

“Still, to go out and hammer them 6-2 was a bit bitter-sweet.”

With striker Morgan Sherman and defender Katie Pakai-Kelly unable to make the trip to Stanwell Oval to face Southern, Godbier was a little unsure of how Sunday’s match would unfold.

But young talent Tayla Lloyd struck early and from that point on the Mariners dominated. They led 4-1 at half-time and found the back of the two more times in the second stanza.

“We were just totally dominant. They were last on the ladder but we didn’t know how they were going to play, if they would come out and throw everything at us to try and upset us.

“Our goal was to concentrate on maintaining possession and we knew if we did that for 90 minutes, we would score enough goals to win.

“In the end it probably could have been something like 14-2, but I will take the six goals we scored. We probably scored one of the fastest goals this season as well, we scored in the first minute, minute and a half.”

Lloyd, playing in the unfamiliar striker’s role, finished with a hat-trick while Jess Salomoni was in good touch as well as she twice found the back of the net.

But even more pleasing for the coach was that his side enjoyed a bulk of the possession.

“I am really happy with how we knocked the ball around, we probably had 70-80 percent of possession and when we did turn over the ball, we really rolled up the sleeves to win it back,” Godbier said.

“We really just strangled them.”

WESTERN NSW MARINERS FC 6 (Tayla Lloyd 3, Jess Salomoni 2, Kate Henley-Sadgrove) defeated SOUTHERN DISTRICTS 2