A GRAND final spot against Ultima awaits Moulamein or Hay, while the other will face an off-season wondering, “what if?”
The Swans have been Ultima’s greatest threat this season, as they chase a drought breaking senior premiership – their last coming in 1988.
Moulamein coach Heath Moloney said his side were excited to return to a preliminary final.
“Obviously we’d rather be in the grand final, but we’ll just go the hard way to get there,” he said.
“Footy is an exciting game, you don’t always have to win the first game, you don’t have to win every game.
“There’s just one more remaining game after this we need to get to, and that’s the one we’re all trying to win.”
To get there, Moulamein will have to stop the free-flowing run of an impressive Hay, including from Fergus Cattanach and Will Clark in the midfield.
“We’ve always prided ourselves on getting to the footy first in the midfield, we’ve just got to be a bit cleaner with our hands when we do get them to the football,” Moloney said.
“I think we might have just been a bit flat-footed against Ultima and we know that is something we need to fix for this weekend.
“We just have to knuckle down and play some smart footy, and try to cut off their run as much as we can.”
Their back line will also need to stop the forward strength of Declan Watson and Simon Bunyan.
Watson was one of the most exciting players of the season, kicking 49 goals in just nine games – which didn’t include facing the Swans.
“We haven’t played against Declan, but we know that we’ll have to keep an eye on him,” Moloney said.
“Both him and Simon are strong forwards, we just need to make sure they can’t get an easy run at it.”
Hay coach Mick Cattanach said the week off had provided his squad the chance to rest up and keep an eye on players carrying soreness.
“We may be forced into one or two changes, but it looks like we will be running out a pretty similar group to our line-up against Macorna,” Cattanach said.
He was under no illusions on who would be favourites.
“I think Moulamein are entitled to go into the game as favourites, I mean they’ve beaten us three times this year,” he said.
“But they’ve been pretty competitive games and although it might be a bit of a challenge for us, our boys are really up for it.
“We just need to be up for the contest, get our hands on the ball, and hopefully guys like Declan (Watson) and our forwards can kick a winning score for us.”
Cattanach believed matching the physicality of the Swans’ talls was key to being in the contest.
“Heath Moloney has been in pretty good form in the ruck pretty much for the whole year, and they get a lot of their drive from him getting first hand to the ball,” he said.
“Anthony Daw isn’t a bad second ruckman to have either, he’s obviously got really good size, to the point where there’s not many people in our league that are anywhere near him.
“We just have to match it with them, they’re quite a physical side, but traditionally Hay has been a pretty physical side as well.
“We don’t really have the size that they’ve got, but all we really need to do is win the ball in the contested situations.
“If you’re not able to do that in the finals then you’re going to struggle to be competitive.”
