THE Bathurst Bushrangers are the undoubted favourites for this year's AFL Central West men's tier one premiership, but Giants coach Mark Kennedy has sent them a message - check your review mirrors.
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On Saturday as the Bushrangers made it seven from seven for season 2020 by fighting off a determined Dubbo Demons, Kennedy's Bathurst Giants climbed into second on the ladder thanks to a dominant 18-11-119 to 5-3-35 victory against the Orange Tigers.
Under the format of the shortened season the Bushrangers have already secured the minor premiership and the first spot in the grand final. It will be either Dubbo or the Giants who join them.
"Anything can happen on the day, the Bathurst Bushrangers went up there to Dubbo and were pushed. I know Bathurst had a couple of good quarters, but Dubbo had a really good third quarter, they held them scoreless, it shows anything can happen," Kennedy said.
"The Bushrangers have got a good side, it's like they are driving a Ferrari around. But I hope they've installed rear vision mirrors in that Ferrari as there could be some teams that are building momentum at the right time of the year."
Building momentum is something the Giants are certainly doing.
After beating the Demons in round seven, Kennedy's men produced their best half of football this season to blow away the Orange Tigers at Waratahs on Saturday.
There was just 15 points in it at half-time, but the Giants booted 12 majors across the two quarters which followed and also held the Tigers scoreless in the final term.
"It was pretty close up until half-time and I thought let's reset. We changed the game style a little bit because we wanted to defend in the breeze, we put an extra man into the back line when they had the breeze," Kennedy said.
"We just clicked and went on from there. We got really good delivery forward, our free man pushed up, Sam Sloan just caught and kicked everything and Jordy Longmore was handy to have up there as another target.
"Just to have Jack Goodsell dominating the rucks and getting those centre clearances. Like in the first half we were winning the taps, but we weren't winning the clearances, but that turned around in the second half."
Having two tall targets in the forward line working alongside the likes of Cooper Brien, Max Currie, Liam Cooke and Simon Kay saw the Giants able to capitalise on their inside 50s.
But that was not the only area in which they impressed.
Instead of attacking through the centre corridor out of defence, the Giants used their flanks and capitalised on the run of players such as Nic Broes.
Kennedy said the form comes with "a bit of self belief". He knows that will be an important element as the Giants look to win their final round match away to Dubbo and lock in hosting rights for the preliminary final.
"A couple of players really stood up. Sam Sloan is really growing in confidence, James Kennedy had a great game in the back line and forward line. He's quite versatile, the intercept marks he took were really good and the decision making out of the back line was really good," he said.
"We're still not worried about finals at the moment, we are still in the regular season. So we've got to set up to play Dubbo which is always a tough road trip away for us."
