THE only sports clothing Panmure coach Dave Conheady wants to worry about after this weekend is his footy gear.
“It’s a preliminary final so if you play well, you get to play in a grand final,” he said.
“If you lose, then you have to get your cricket whites out.
“It’s the pointy end of the season — you don’t really need much motivation at this time of the year.”
To advance to the season decider, the Bulldogs will need to extinguish traditional rival Kolora-Noorat’s back-to-back aspirations.
Conheady was forced off the ground last Saturday after getting a boot in his back, which flared up a previous injury.
The veteran is confident he will be able to lead his side onto Reid Oval tomorrow after regular treatment during the week.
“I’m an old man now and I don’t have that many games of footy left in me so I’ll be playing unless I’m a dead set chance not to,” he said.
The Bulldogs have lost small forward Luke Gavin to illness.
They have named an extended bench for the preliminary final, with Conheady saying Sam Boyd, Greg Atwell and Matt Smith would come into the side if there were any late exclusions.
After braving the ocean at a recovery session on Sunday morning, Panmure supported its A grade and A reserve netballers in the first semi-final later in the day.
Training this week has been reasonably light for the Bulldogs due to the club’s heavy ground.
Kolora-Noorat has also named an extended bench for tomorrow, which includes potential inclusion Sam Moloney.
The Power will welcome one handy inclusion in forward Nick Kenna but loses fellow experienced campaigner Jamie Whitehead to a calf injury, which he sustained in last Sunday’s first semi-final against Russells Creek.
Coach Ben Kenna was unsure how serious the injury was for Whitehead.
“We’ll just have to wait and see and if we make it to next week, we’ll hope that he’ll be right to play,” he said.
The Power — which stuck to its usual training routine this week — is looking to provide their reserves, under 14½ and two 15 and under netball sides with something to hang around for on grand final day.
Kenna said there was plenty of buzz around the club ahead of tomorrow’s showdown.
“I suppose after you get a win, everyone’s fairly positive,” he said.
“Everyone thinks that we’re a good chance and now we’ve got that bit of self-belief because we had a good result last weekend.”
The coach did not want to give too much away before the clash but said that work around the stoppages would be a focus for his side, particularly after he believed that Panmure had the better of the Power in that area of the game in the qualifying final.
He said his players were excited about trying to reverse the result of the qualifying final and the sides’ round 14 encounter.
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