Mid Gippsland FL Preliminary Final preview

PRELIMINARY FINAL PREVIEW – YINNAR V YALLOURN-YALLOURN NORTH

With so much on the line, the importance of having your very side on the park is absolutely crucial at this time of the year.

Equally having your best, playing its best, will inevitably be the difference between winning and losing.

It was only a fortnight ago that Yinnar and Yallourn-Yallourn North fought out the Qualifying final that took every bit of the one hundred and twenty minutes of the match for the Magpies to eventually win.

There were no excuses from the Bombers however, with coach Barrie Burnett declaring that to beat a side as good as Yinnar it would take some really strong discipline and adhering to team rules, especially when the pressure was on late in a game.

With lessons learnt from that game and the saying “that a week is a long time in football”, the Bombers might still deserve to enter this game as slight favourites.

Yinnar have been defeated by Trafalgar, and Yallourn-Yallourn North have been boosted by an uplifting win over Mirboo North in that time.

Importantly Yinnar may not have access to their first choice team, after injuries to players last week might rule them out for their preliminary final clash.

On the other hand, the very best thing that might have happened for the Bombers is that the leagues leading goal kicker Dean MacDonald finally notched his one hundredth for the season against the Tigers in its first semi final meaning the pressure is now off both the talented forward, and his team mates trying to assist him to achieve the rare feat.

Coach of Yinnar Jaimie Aitken might again have the role off matching it with Dean MacDonald this week, what Aitken lakes in pace compared to MacDonald, he makes up with experience and the ability to guard space in which the full forward would prefer to lead.

These matches inevitably get down to just a few key areas, who wins the midfield?, who wins the stoppages? and who makes less errors going forward?

Tackles, forward fifty entries, contested marks, are all interesting to make comparisons at games end, but its what a side does in the old fashioned we got it, they got it and ball in dispute that will go a long way to determining the winner.