That was the honest admission from Bathurst Lady Bushrangers captain Kelsey Richards after her side suffered a shock 3.5.23 – 0.2.2 loss to the Dubbo Demons in Saturday’s Central West AFL major semi-final.

Though the contest at Waratahs Sportsground was anticipated to be close, there was no doubt that the three-time defending premiers held favouritism over the Demons.

But instead of advancing straight the the grand final as they had done in all their previous campaigns the Bushrangers were unable to get on top of the Demons in the battle for contested football.

“It’s difficult to pin-point what happened other than we were just outplayed,” Richards said.

“The Demons were fabulous, they played very, very well.”

While the Lady Bushrangers went into the match missing a handful of players, including experienced representative Keeghan Tucker, Richards didn’t want to take anything away from the quality of the Demons’ performance.

“We try not to make that a focus of the result, we would’ve loved to have had [Tucker] out there, but the Demons were just great,” she said.

The Demons led by 13 points at the long break and while the Bushrangers lifted in the second half, the Dubbo outfit won more of the clearances to create a bulk of the opportunities.

It told on the scoreboard as remarkably, the Bathurst side was held goalless.

“Our first half was a bit dodgy, but our second half we played really good footy. It was hard to reflect on a loss when we know we played pretty good footy in the second half,” Richards said.

“Their midfield cleared the ball nicely and moved the ball really well down the centre of the ground when they got it.

“There were lots of scraps, lots of contests around the ground, and they didn’t have a great number of scoring shots either. 

“But they were much stronger than us in certain contests and that gave them the ability to have those shots on goal.”