This Saturday, the Yass Roos will take on the Goulburn Swans at Joe O’Connor Park, and it is shaping up to be a battle between two very similar sides.
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Both teams made the finals last year, with the Roos progressing to win the grand final, and this year both sides have seen a host of changes within their lineups, and both have welcomed a new head coach to the fold.
The coach of the Goulburn Swans, Matt Lee, has not seen the Roos play before, but he has taken on board advice from other members of the club and feels that the team is well prepared.
“I’m asking around the club and stuff, and I’m expecting a relatively hard game,” Lee said.
“I obviously haven’t seen them play, but a lot of people I spoke to say that every time you go down to Yass, you know that you’ve played a game of footy.
“[We’re] expecting that harder, contested sort of game, so that’s definitely something that we’ll be discussing at training tomorrow.”
One advantage Lee believes that his team holds is their strength across the field.
“I think we’re fairly even across the park,” he said.
“I wouldn’t say any area is particularly stronger than others … it’s just about making sure we have a sustained effort in getting the 22 contributors we have on the day.
“Making sure everyone’s playing their role is really gonna be our focus.”
Yass Roos coach, Sam Campbell, is aware that both sides also possess the capacity to beat anyone in the competition on their day.
“I’m expecting Goulburn to be really strong,” Campbell said. “They had a good win against ANU in their first game, so we’re expecting them to come out [firing]. We’ll have to bring our A-game.”
The key for Yass lies in their midfield, which Campbell said helped them over the line in last weekend’s close encounter with ADFA.
“Our strong point has definitely been in our midfield,” he said.
“We had a really good win against ADFA at the home ground early, then we played them again on the weekend at their home ground, [it was] a totally different game.
“I think we won it in the middle, it just got us over the line in the end.”
However, Campbell is also wary that the Swans have some very dangerous players that they will need to plan ahead for.
“I think they’ve got a bloke named Dale Cummings who’s probably their best midfielder in previous years, he’s come back this year so we’ll probably take a little attention to him,” he said.
When asked about the key to the match, Campbell said “they go in hard, so we’re just gonna have to go in harder.”