THERE’S a belief in Goulburn’s Capital League Hockey side that they are more than capable of defeating the all conquering Central.
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That’s despite at every encounter with Central; Goulburn has gone down. The most recent a 5-4 finals thriller two weeks ago.
But Goulburn are the new boys on the block. They’re energetic, they’re fresh and they are still learning their way in the competition.
In one year they’ve leapt over the rest of the competition and they go into tomorrow’s grand-final like an unsuspecting green grasshopper capable of the extraordinary.
Coach Steve Downey, when asked if Goulburn can go all the way, told the Post: “Definitely”.
He tells the Post that at the beginning of the year he knew the side were capable of causing a few upsets, but now he believes his sides have all the attributes to bring home the premiership.
Helping him achieve this goal and leading the charge is local hero Glenn Turner. He also told the Post earlier in the year that for Goulburn to have a team to call their own was not only well deserved, but something to be proud of.
But Central are no pushovers. They have only been beaten once in the seven grandfinals they’ve reached the last ten years.
They’ve been the dominating force all decade.
And in this, their 60th anniversary year, they’ll have a strong motivation to make 2014 victorious.
“They’re a close knit team that’s hard to score against,” Turner tells the Post.
“Then their attack is also the best in the competition.
“But we’ve learnt from the last time we faced them.”
Turner is referring to the 20 minute blitz in which Goulburn narrowed a 5-1 margin to fall seconds short of equalising in the dying minutes of their finals loss two weeks ago.
“It was actually a funny feeling when it ended,” he said.
“We didn’t feel too bad although we had lost and had to make it to the grand-final the hard way but, but I remember wondering who benefitted the most out of that game. Central who had won, or us who had ran over the top and made our way back?” Phil Jorgensen, coach of Central, knows his team fell off the mark in those last 20 minutes.
But he says it was a combination of both his side backing off and Goulburn lifting intensity.
He has a sneaking feeling tomorrow’s decider will go down to the wire “Both teams have the same open, aggressive style of play. We’ve also both been the best two teams all year,” he said.
“For those reasons I think it’ll be a high class match with plenty of goals. It’s going to be a great game to watch for anyone that comes along.”
The grand-final begins at Canberra’s Lyneham Hockey Centre at 3.45pm tomorrow afternoon.