By Tyler Lewis
It’s Jake Richardson and Clinton Johnson, it’s Kurt Mutimer and Joel Garner, it’s Narre Warren and Wandin… it’s David and Goliath.
There are no delusions at Wandin; the Dogs know they’ll have to be snarling to defeat Narre Warren on Sunday.
The side Wandin just dismantled – Woori Yallock – is the only outfit to have the answer to the question: how does one beat Narre Warren?
And while the answer escapes him for now, Dogs coach Nick Adam is fully aware that his men will need to be inspired by the occasion.
“Their strength is their ball movement,” he said.
“They’re so clean by foot, so we’ve got to put pressure on the source, I think we were able to do in the last quarter today (Sunday), we need to be able to replicate that against them and not give them clean footy.
“They’re really good at static possession, kick, kick, kick, kick; our transition defence is going to have to be right on from our forwards.
“The reality is we’re going to have to play our best footy to beat them, but we feel like we’ve been building over the last month, we’ve never been in a better position to try and get it done.
“The boys are confident, the club is feeling good about itself, I am confident, it’s another opportunity – that’s what today has given us: two more games of footy.”
The Dogs and Pies have met twice this year, with Narre Warren compellingly winning on both occasions, but this week is different, a spot in the Outer East Premier Division grand final awaits the winner.
History is often forgotten in finals and it looms as a similar trend this week for Magpies coach Shane Dwyer, who thinks both outfits will head in with fresh personnel.
“They’ve got a few different faces in, we will have a couple I think too from the last time we played them,” he said.
“They’ve got a really good midfield and we identified that the times we played them, especially up there, we thought that was going to be one of our bigger tests of the year.
“We played pretty well… we much prefer the big deck to the small deck, so I had a look at Gembrook yesterday and there’s a bit of space there, I think it’ll suit us.
“It will just be a case of how we come out after the week off.”
As it often is, the midfield battle will be a by-product of how the game unfolds.
The Dogs have the addition of Joel Garner who has returned from VFL duties, but he will likely rub shoulders inside the centre circle with Kurt Mutimer, who has simply made a mockery of Wandin – and the competition – this season.
In the most recent clash, Mutimer collected 36 disposals, 10 clearances and kicked five goals… if he records similar numbers again, the Dogs will not get close to winning this game of football!
Four successive grand final appearances loom for Narre Warren, while a fourth grand final since 2014 is the reward on offer for Wandin.
