TWO seasons after facing off in a grand final, Swan Hill and Balranald will resume their finals rivalry in Saturday’s qualifying final at Lake Boga.
It will be their first finals encounter against each other since that fateful afternoon when the Roos broke through for their first ever A Grade premiership, and while a lot has changed in the past two seasons, the two clubs’ hunger for finals success remains the same.
Both teams have undergone significant changes, with Swan Hill defender Stevie Bibby even swapping bibs having played that day for Balranald, but it will be the changes within the current season that will have the most focus on Saturday.
The other big focus, at least from a Balranald perspective, will be an improved performance from their earlier encounter this season, when the Swans monstered a Roos outfit that was still finding their feet following the season-ending injury to goal attack and co-coach Jess Parry.
Swan Hill produced one of their most dominant wins for the season in the 65-35 victory, Zoe Morris scoring 43 goals and Bibby producing a best-on-court display.
Roos co-coach Parry was confident of a far more polished performance.
“It should be a pretty competitive game and well contested,” Parry said.
“When we played them earlier in the season and how we’re playing our netball now is pretty different, so I’m expecting it should be a better result than it was that day.
“There’ll be some key match-ups across the court that will probably determine the game, but I think we’re both pretty evenly matched and it will just depend who’s having their day.
“They’ll play in a very similar fashion to how they played us earlier in the year I would think, Stevie (Bibby) in defence is very strong and then Zoe (Morris) in attack is obviously their main avenue to goal, so we’ll be looking to try and nullify both of those players as much as we can.
“Our confidence has really grown since that last game and we’ve started to play a bit more to our own strength and I think that’s something you have to do in finals.
“As much you focus on your opposition, you also have to go and play the game on your terms and play with confidence.”
With Morris set to return to Swan Hill’s line-up having missed her team’s four-goal win over Kerang last Saturday, the reigning premiers will go in as warm favourites to go through and face Lake Boga next Saturday.
Finals can be a very different ball game and while both clubs have reached the pinnacle in recent seasons, the Swans have been one of the teams to beat year on year in the Central Murray.
Although the finals experience will be on the Swans’ side, it will count for little when both teams hit the court.
Swan Hill co-coach Madeleine Nalder was fully aware Balranald were a team not to be taken lightly.
“I feel as though you can never go in too confident with finals, you just aim to play the best you can possibly play and try to rise to the occasion,” Nalder told The Guardian this week.
“This is why we play and everyone’s there to win, it doesn’t really matter what happens throughout the year, you have to take every game as it comes and on its merit when you get to this stage.
“I don’t think we can read too much into it our last game against (Balranald) because we’ve been in scenarios in the past where we’ve beaten teams comfortably during the season and then they’ve turned the tables on us come finals time.
“They have had some personnel changes, so we won’t be taking them lightly as they have been in good form of late and we know we’ll need to be at our best.
“We’ll focus on the things we can control and just focusing on preparing ourselves the best that we can.”
The match-up between Morris and Balranald goal keeper Elli-Jane Pollard, who played in attack in round 9, could well prove to be decisive.
The other key area of focus for the Roos will be on their ability to move the ball through Swan Hill’s well organised defence, with the Swans having conceded the least number of goals of any A Grade side this season.
If Balranald can get a big game from Ella Mirtschin in goals and their midcourt of Bree Hodgson, Bonnie Jolliffe, Chloe Taylor and Taylin Barry can transition the ball with speed, then an upset could be on the cards – but only if the Swans have an off day.
Tip – Swan Hill to win by four goals.
