BATHURST Panthers and St Pat’s are the most successful teams in the history of the Group 10 league tag competition with two premierships apiece. Now they have the chance to make it three.
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Panthers finished the regular season in second with 14 wins through 16 rounds, while the Saints snuck into third with an 11 and five record to join them in this Sunday’s qualifying final.
St Pat’s coach Mick Armstrong feels his side is lucky not to be facing elimination, a final round draw between Blayney and Orange CYMS handing them third.
But now his side has a chance to add to its 2012 and 2015 titles, he’s excited by the prospect.
“It’s always good to get two bites of the cherry,” he said.
“It will be a pretty good game, it always is when we come up against Panthers. Hopefully it is a close game on the weekend, most of the games we’ve had in the last three or four years there’s only been a few points in it.”
However, the last time Pat’s met Panthers it was not a close contest, with the Saints going down 34-14.
Though Armstrong’s side had players out due to injury, he admitted Panthers “were just too good.” In order to prevent a similar scoreline this Sunday, he said possession will be key.
“We really need to make sure we play out as many of our sets as possible, if we can make them have to come out of their end all the time it will go a long way to stopping them,” he said.
“Realistically it’s pretty hard to go through a whole game without dropping the ball, so we’ve got to make sure that when we do, our defence is ready.”
Panthers captain Monique Christie-Johnston, who also skippered her side to a 14-8 win over Pat’s in April, admitted she had anticipated meeting defending premiers Blayney in the qualifying final.
But that Blayney ended up fourth after the surprise draw with CYMS highlighted to her that Panthers can not take any result for granted.
“It was a bit undecided who we would be playing right up until the final game, it’s been a really close top four this year, any of the teams can beat anyone,” she said.
Christie-Johnston has faith in her team-mates, but is not underestimating the Saints.
“The final time we played them we won it quite convincingly, so we are confident that if we can play that sort of footy on the weekend, we’ll get that result,” she said.
“But anything can happen, Pat’s are coming off two losses, so they’re going to be hungry.
“We are both similar in the style of footy we play … it does make it harder, but we are used to the situation. We know what they are going to bring, they know what we are going to bring, so it will come down to who plays best on the day.”
Kick-off on Sunday is at 10.30am at Carrington Park.
