RUGBY UNION
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FOR most, Saturday’s entree to the main course is the Blowes Clothing Cup second grade decider - which also happens to be Orange City versus Orange Emus.
For Chooks’ coach Mitch Dansey though, this game is it.
This is Dansey’s duck a l’orange.
Having relocated to Sydney a month ago, ending an eight-year association with Emus, Dansey will officially finish his tenure with the greens at the completion of Saturday’s second grade grand final against Orange City, a game that’s also a re-match of the 2014 decider won 20-11 by Emus.
“It does mean a lot,” Dansey said looking ahead to his last game with the club.
“And it does put a bit more emphasis on getting that win.
“But the game isn’t about me. We haven’t really perfected what we’ve been trying to all year, and we were far from good against Bathurst last week.
“We’ve probably been good once this year (in a 29-nil win over Roos), so hopefully we can replicate that on Saturday.
“We’ll probably go in as underdogs.”
Defending premiers, Emus booked a place in the lower grade decider courtesy of a nail-biting, come-from-behind 14-10 win over the minor premiers Bulldogs, the Bathurst club sensationally bundled out of this year’s finals series in straight sets after going down to the Lions in the major semi before that.
Timing their run at the title perfectly, Orange City produced a 12-7 upset of Bathurst to be the first side to progress through to the grand final.
VIDEO: Michelle Cook and Matt Findlay preview the lower grade deciders:
Captain Anthony Kent says the Lions are determined to reverse last year’s grand final result.
“We’ll be coming out hard,” he said.
“I’m a bit more prepared compared to last year. We copped a few injuries in last year’s game and didn’t have the bench to cover it all.
“This year we’ll have the depth.”
Kent believes the 21-19 round nine, 24-17 final round and the 22-13 qualifying semi-final victories for his side over Emus won’t mean anything.
“Not in grand finals. Form counts for nothing,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter that we’ve beaten them each time this year.”
Saturday'’s decider kicks off at 1.30pm.
ORANGE CITY: 1 Matt Adams, 2 Ben Wilson, 3 Cal Townsend, 4 Chris Scoins, 5 Asa Amone, 6 Ben Swadling, 7 Matt Dillon, 8 Feleti Wolfgramm, 9 Anthony Kent, 10 Simon Livingstone, 11 Joe Alexander, 12 Paul Sligar, 13 Sione Amone, 14 Jim Alexander, 15 Taylor Smith.
ORANGE EMUS: 1 Matt Findlay (c), 2 Drew Bale, 3 Luke Turner, 4 Jack Hart, 5 Steve Levett, 6 Matt Pierce, 7 Andrew Selwood, 8 Sam Chamberlain, 9 Matt Clark, 10 Seb Backhouse, 11 Luke Trott, 12 Paul Mullins, 13 James Simmons, 14 Adam Freeman, 15 Luke Ginns.