Bathurst Giants ready to battle as underdogs in 2022 AFL Central West senior men's tier one grand final

The Giants enter the AFL Central West senior men's grand final looking for what would be one of the most memorable upsets in competition history, as they pursue a maiden senior men's premiership.

It would be a remarkable way for the Giants to win a title, and they're certainly not short on confidence after beating the Dubbo Demons by 10 points in a brilliant preliminary final contest at home.

Giants' Luke Macauley said the levels of enthusiasm across the club are sky high, given the senior women's side are also in action on grand final day.

"We're all really keen. The feeling within the group is great and we all really back each other as a team. We're going to give it a really good crack," he said.

"It was great to have a tough game going into this. We expected a game like that, and we know it's going to be the same this weekend as well.

"Dubbo knew what was on the line just as much as we did, and over those closing minutes everyone was starting to think 'grand final's on the line here' and everyone put in great performances to get us over the line."

Macauley himself was one of those players who helped steer the Giants to preliminary final success, and was named player's player by his peers on the back of his efforts.

He'll look to take control of the midfield in the grand final along with the likes of Jack Goodsell plus Cooper and Bailey Brien.

It'll be a crucial battle zone, and it's an area where the Giants have been taking teams apart in the early stages of their recent games.

"There's obviously a bit of pressure on us, given that it's a grand final, but Bushrangers are the ones that are undefeated so it's their game to lose really," Macauley said.

"We're going in knowing that we're up against a great opposition ... [but] we still want to win this match so there's still that bit of pressure on us, of course."

Giants have had five opportunities to bring down the Bushrangers with no luck so far.

They were thumped by the Bushrangers in the first two of those outings but since then the Giants have asked serious questions of their rivals' defence.

They've got within 15 and 19 points on two of those occasions.

"We've had extensive talks about how to attack them. They just set up so well defensively so we need to find ways to get past their press and the way that they set up there," Macauley said.

"Their run of half back is another area where they've always been quite strong so that's another area that we need to be mindful of.

"There's a couple of bits and pieces we have in place that we want to bring into this game."

First bounce in the grand final is 2.15pm.

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