Greater Northern Cup ladder-leader Westbury travel to play Latrobe on Saturday in a first versus third contest between two of the form sides of the competition.
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The Shamrocks are coming off a bye and captain Michael Lukic expected a tough test against the Demons at home.
“We are ready for it and have a full-strength side A-grade side but we will need to be at our best to beat them there,” Lukic said.
“Getting early wins and trying to get those buffers was where we wanted to be rather than play catch-up coming into Christmas and we really wanted to get off to a good start.
“We put a lot of emphasis and focus on the one-day cricket in the pre-season and we’ve had a couple of good wins but it’s important we keep that momentum going.
“The last game against Ulverstone was a really good fighting win but there is still room for improvement.”
Riverside will be looking for a fifth-straight GNC victory when they meet Burnie at West Park in another contest with ladder implications as fourth plays fifth.
“ It’s a big game for us – the ladder is pretty close and want to play finals in all formats,” Blues captain Alex Saunders said. We played really well against them down there last year in the semi final so will be looking to replicate that.
“We will likely have an unchanged line up which is great coming off four in a row. Burnie have been travelling really well this year so we are expecting a tough contest.”
South Launceston faces a long road trip to play Wynyard looking to put together consecutive wins for the first time this season.
Knights coach Mark Nutting said they wanted to build a winning culture and had had success at Wynyard in the past.
“We’ve been fortunate to gain a couple of bonus points and will be going all guns to try to score as many points as possible to try to squeeze into the finals,” he said.
Charlie Eastoe returns from Hobart to strengthen the batting and take the gloves, John Hayes is under an injury cloud with Will Foster a possible replacement and Keelan Beattie dropping back to the twos.
Launceston takes on Sheffield at the NTCA No.1 Ground in a battle of the win-less teams with the Lions keen for their first victory.
“Someone is going to be excited at the end of the day and we’d like to think we take an advantage in being on our home deck,” Lions coach Andrew Gower said.
“ We will just try to go back to the basics hitting the top of off stump when we bowl and watch the ball hard when we bat and hopefully build some momentum on the back of Thursday night which we can take through to Saturday.”
Zac Oldenhof and Jack Schaeche come back into the side to strengthen the batting after some solid performances in the twos with Kiwi Maison Carstensen and Tom Gray unavailable.
Mowbray will attempt to arrest a form slump which has seen them lose their last three matches in a row and drop out of the top four when they meet Ulverstone at Invermay Park.
The Eagles have suffered defeats to Latrobe, Burnie and Riverside and need to turn that form around to retain any chance of making finals.
The batting line-up has been under-performing and will be a focus again if the Eagles are to get back on the winner’s list.
