THROW everything at them, dictate terms, seize momentum and then keep it - that is the mission for St Pat's when it comes to Saturday's Premier League Hockey preliminary final against Confederates.
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It will not be an easy mission given Feds will hold the advantage of playing on their home turf at Orange, but Saints coach Ben Weal has faith his players can fulfil it.
He feels the key will be emulating the sort of hockey his Saints produced in the first half of last Saturday's minor semi-final against Orange CYMS.
That first half saw the Saints use their width nicely, capitalise on the pace of their forwards and establish a 2-0 lead in a match they eventually won 3-2.
"It will be tough and I don't think you can go into any finals situation over confident," Weal said.
"But if we can play like we did in the first half last week, I don't think too many teams would come near to us if we play at that sort of level, but you have to play at that level the whole game.
"We have to maintain that level and not have periods where we drop off because when we dropped off last week that hurt us and put us under the pump. Once you lose that momentum it's hard to get it back.
"So we've just got to go out on the weekend and play the game that comes naturally to us, the way we want to play and dictate to them the way the game is going to be played rather than being reactive to them."
Weal has watched the footage of Feds' 2-0 major semi-final loss to Lithgow Panthers last week and while he said there were "some things I picked apart a bit", he also noted "they're strong for sure."
Given the shortened nature of the season, the Saints and Feds have meet just once so far this in 2020. Weal's side won that match 1-0.
Weal knows Feds will have improved since then, as evidenced by finishing second in the minor premiership, but the same can be said of his side. The Saints will also have a stronger line-up than they fielded in that earlier meeting.
"We're expecting a hard game with them, we only won 1-0 in the round game. In that game I don't think we ever felt overly threatened, but in saying that, it's hard to gauge in finals how they're going to turn up," Weal said.
"Like CYMS were, I think they'll be better this week than when we played them previously. But when we played them in the first round Esther [Hotham] wasn't there, so we were missing a strong player.
"That gives you a bit of confidence we didn't throw everything thing at them the first time and won and this time we'll be at full strength and we'll be throwing everything at them."
The preliminary final starts at 12.30pm.
