HAVING scraped into the top five in the dying minutes of the home-and-away season last Saturday, Tyntynder will go into the elimination final against the Mallee Eagles with “nothing to lose”, according to their coach Kelsey Rowe.
After needing everything to go right over the final fortnight of the season to see September action, the Bulldogs faced an anxious wait following their nine-goal win over Woorinen to hear if their season would continue.
“There were lots of mixed emotions on Saturday as we didn’t know what was happening with the other results,” Rowe told The Guardian this week.
“It was a bit of a rollercoaster, but our focus was really on our game and finishing the season on a high.
“We started our year strong then had a bit of a lull in the middle before hitting our straps again, we just want to continue that form and take the positivity from last week into Sunday’s game.
“There’s something special about finishing fifth, there’s no expectation, there’s no pressure on you and that can be pretty dangerous place as a team to be.
“We just get to go out and play now without any expectation, we want to win and we’ll play like we want to win and see where it takes us.
“In the pressure games we have played in this year we’ve performed really well, it will be tight match and if we can just draw on that experience, that will hold us in good stead.”
Both Tyntynder and the Mallee Eagles are expected to go in with unchanged line-ups from last weekend.
Although the Eagles have been one of the form teams of the competition over the past 18 rounds, they have had a difficult run into this year’s finals series, with just one win from their past three games.
Admittedly, they have encountered top-two teams Lake Boga and Swan Hill.
Eagles co-coach Alicia Harvey was hopeful their strong performances against the competition yardsticks would hold them in good stead.
“We couldn’t have prouder of the girls last week (against Lake Boga),” Harvey said of her and co-coach Jess Jobling.
“It was pretty bittersweet because we played such a good game and kept up with them the whole time, the match-ups across the court were unbelievable but unfortunately, we couldn’t come away with the four points.
“We had training during the week and our confidence coming into Sunday’s game after our performance against (Lake) Boga is probably higher than it would have been had we played any other team.
“They’ve been the benchmark and we know that we’re up there with them when we play our best game.
“The confidence that we gained from playing such a good game against the benchmark team of the season is right up there.”
The only encounter between Sunday’s combatants was in round 9, when the Eagles registered a 10-goal win after overcoming a slow start.
But while that win should give the blue and gold army further belief, neither team will be reading too much into it with both sides undergoing personnel changes since that day.
“It feels like it was ages ago and we’ll both be two very different teams, we had Kasey (Torr) playing then before she got injured and they had both Bridget Dedini and Monica Ellis out that day,” Harvey said.
“It will be really difficult to know what to expect because we had very different teams and it was so long ago.
“In many respects it will be a bit of a blessing as we can be more focused on playing our game, rather than being focused on what players they have or our match-ups or what they can do.
Both the Eagles and Bulldogs play in a similar fashion, with speed and agility through the midcourt a focus, and the attacking ends reliant on quick ball movement to open up play into the ring for their respective goalers.
Megan Thorneycroft has had a sensational season for the Eagles at goal attack, while Dedini and Rowe’s partnership in Tyntynder’s attacking third has been steadily building the longer the season has progressed.
The advantage for Mallee is their defensive pairing of Laura Sheahan and Nevaeh Roberts, both of whom can rotate through goal defence and keeper depending on match-ups, with strong support from WD Leah McKenzie expected to help the Eagles get the job done and live to fight another week.
Tip – Mallee Eagles to win by five goals.
