The much anticipated Finals time of the South West Fuels Cup has finally arrived.
The Harden Red Devils are set to face their biggest rivals in the first round, the Boorowa Goldies. Over the course of the season the Devils have put together a near perfect season having only dropped 2 games to the top of the ladder Goldies.
Can the Dark Horse Devils triumph early this weekend on Boorowa Turf, or will the light shine Gold again on the Boorowa Squad.
Both teams are the favourites for the Grand Final, but eager to get a win against the Goldies early, to stunt their confidence is Devils coach Jack Alcorn. “We took an unfortunate loss to the Goldies in the last round of the regular season. We had a few fellas out, and honestly, the momentum going into the game wasn’t massive as the result had no effect on the ladder.”
The match ended 26-5 which Alcorn contributes strongly to the shortened roster. Despite this Alcorn still took the opportunity to figure out the Goldies. “It was a chance for us to learn more about the Goldies style and how to beat them.
“We are super confident and we are forecast for a dry pitch this time which should play to our advantage. Allowing our backs to get that bit more ball and use our width a bit better, I think that’s really going to work in our favour. We are really looking forward to it.”
Taking the lessons learned from the previous matchup Alcorn is looking to shake things up in order to catch the Goldies off guard. “There will be a few things different. We’ll have a little bit of a change for our starting forward pack and our backs as well, just bringing in a little bit of size that we didn’t have last time, but overall, we’re not looking to change our game too much. I think we’ve got the skills and we’ve got the structure to do what we want to do, so it’s just a matter of executing that on the day.”
The strength of the Goldies has lied in their powerful scrums, strong attacking force and low turnover of penalties. The Devils are committed to maintaining their strong defensive line and developing parts of their game to counter Boorowa,“We’ve been working on our scrums for a fair while now and our scrums.” Alcorn shares. “I feel like we are better now than even just a few weeks ago and we are just going to keep working on that and hopefully improving and I don’t think that we are going to be necessarily dominant in the scrum, but if we can hold our own and win our own scrums that is always a positive.”
Win, lose or draw, the Devils will remain with a chance with a preliminary finals the week following or a home grand final 2 weeks from now.
– Liam Stuart
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