After a dominant season, the Goulburn Dirty Reds women passed their sternest challenge so far on Saturday to book a place in this weekend's grand final.
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Up against the Gungahlin Eagles at Nicholls, the Dirty Reds played what co-coach Rob Sheekey described as a "terrible" first half of football, and went down 17-0 at the break.
The second half began as an arm wrestle, with both sides fighting for the ascendancy, and Goulburn began to work its way into the match.
With only a few minutes remaining, the Dirty Reds crossed for their first try, and subsequently broke the back of Gungahlin's defence to score twice more and claim a heart-stopping 19-17 win.
"It's given us a real wake-up call," Sheekey said.
"If we don't turn up with our boots on, ready to go, they'll certainly give us all sorts of trouble like they did on the weekend."
As Sheekey indicated, this weekend's grand final will be played against Gungahlin once again, as they and the Dirty Reds were the two highest-ranked teams.
Goulburn are favourites going into the game, but Sheekey said the Eagles are now confident that they can cause an upset.
"We've given them extra confidence this weekend, maybe they'll believe they're not that far away from us and they can beat us," he said.
"[It's] pleasing that we came back, but we've given them hope as well, so we need to turn up and play."
But Sheekey is confident that his girls can get the job done. They have won all 12 of their matches this season, and their work ethic is what has impressed the coach most of all.
"We've been working very hard all season to get to this point, so I guess the hard work pays off," Sheekey said.
"It's pretty impressive, given most of our players are in their first season of rugby.
"I'm surprised but not surprised [by their success] because we've seen the hard work they've put in."
Having scarcely played in the last few weeks due to byes and rescheduled matches, the Dirty Reds ground their way into form last Saturday. It would take a brave punter to bet against them this weekend.
The grand final will take place at Crookwell Memorial Oval from 12.30pm on Saturday, August 24.
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