ULTIMA will be aiming to avoid a straight sets exit from this year’s Golden Rivers finals series when the Roos take on a white-hot Moulamein at Wandella this Saturday afternoon.
Despite ending the home-and-away season with an 11 win, four loss record, Ultima will go into Saturday’s cut throat clash against the Swans as underdogs.
The reigning premiers missed their chance to secure a direct path through to next weekend’s grand final, with the Roos falling 25 points short against minor premiers Hay in the second semi-final.
Combined with the fact that Moulamein are in the midst of a four-game winning streak as well as having beaten Ultima in their past two matches, and the Swans deserve to be considered slight favourites.
Moulamein are also set to receive a boost with the returns of Morgan Turvey, Matt Edwards and Andrew Courtney for the must-win clash.
While the trio of Swans stars will help add depth across the field, the news isn’t all good with onballer Will Doquile ruled out for the rest of the season following another hamstring tear, with the midfielder’s first season in red and white plagued by injury.
Although Doquile will be a massive loss for the Swans, they were still able to secure a 33-point win over Murrabit in last Sunday’s first semi-final, with Moulamein co-coach Brodie Tonkin expecting a similar level of effort against a much more composed and efficient opponent as Ultima on Saturday.
“We’ve played Ultima three times and won two out of the three, which should hopefully give the boys some confidence,” Tonkin told The Guardian this week.
“With Ultima, they are really good with their foot skills and their ability to sort of kick through defences with their short passes, so it will be important for our boys to be really switched on when they are trying to work through us.
“We need to pair off well and not assume they are going to hit those kicks that we sort of give them because they tend to be really good and dangerous in that aspect of their game.”
The last time the two clubs clashed ended in a 45-point win to Moulamein, with Brett Kennedy proving problematic for the Roos with five goals up forward.
Kennedy has been a revelation for Moulamein after missing the first half of the season with injury, kicking 33 goals from his past six matches, with the Swans winning all six matches, with Ultima co-coach Mitch Seton-Stewart fully aware of the threat posed by the creative forward.
“They (Moulamein) have some really high end talent in their team and when those guys play well, their whole team plays well,” Seton-Stewart said.
“Blake Launer is one of their premium midfielders and is one we have to stop, as is Brett Kennedy, who kicked a few goals against us last time too.
“If we can prevent those guys from playing their style of attacking footy and spreading their goals around, then that’s going to go a long way to us getting the result in the end.
“Overall, it’s going to have to come from our midfielders as it’s pretty easy to kick goals when the midfield delivers the ball to you on a plate.
“It will be up to our mids to lock down in there and put some solid pressure on their midfield group and try to interrupt their supply getting it forward to him, but at the same time we will need to have a focus on team orientated defence.”
Ultima will go into the match with an unchanged line-up, with the Roos hoping key players Tom Bull, Ricky Wild, Cameron Johnson and Seton-Stewart can recapture their form from their round 2 match against the Swans.
While Kennedy looms as the key player up forward for the Swans, the Roos will be looking to Corey Grey (42 goals) and Ryan Devereux (28 goals) to kick them a winning score, with Grey kicking nine goals in his three games against Moulamein this season.
Despite trailing in the head-to-head battle this season, Seton-Stewart is expecting a more competitive performance from his playing squad who were in this exact position just 12 months earlier, before going on to win their 11th Golden Rivers premiership.
“We had a couple of soldiers out in those couple of losses (to Moulamein), but that’s no excuse either,” Seton-Stewart said.
“Moulamein are a very attacking side and you always learn a lot from your losses, which we did, and hopefully what we’ve planned for and what we’ve structured up like will pay dividends come the weekend.
“There’s no next week at the moment for us, but we know if we can play up to our standard and at our best, we know we can get the job done.
“It’s not going to be easy and we’ll have our work cut out for us, but we know we can play and we know our best footy is can get the job done, just like it did last year.”
