Reigning premiers Longford will host Hadspen in the TCL Premier League second semi-final at Longford on Saturday while ACL and Beauty Point will fight out an elimination semi at University Oval.
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The Tigers and Chieftains have plenty to play for with a grand final spot up for grabs for the winners.
Longford will start favourites holding a 2-0 record over Hadspen this season and with a home ground advantage but captain-coach Josh Adams knows his side will need to bring their A-game if they are to be successful again.
“A home final is going to be handy for us and our consistency with bat and ball over the last two weeks has been pleasing going into the game and our batsmen got a good hit in last week,” Adams said.
“We know this week is going to be a step up and we need to put all forms of our cricket into place and play some hard finals cricket.
“We have some good, experienced players so that should hold us in good stead and it’s about getting it done this week.
“They really rely on Nathan Balym and Liam Reynolds with the bat so we need to put some time into them and make sure they don’t get away.”
HADSPEN captain Liam Reynolds said Longford had been the benchmark all year and although the Chieftains would start as underdogs – they had nothing to lose.
“As long as we can apply pressure from the first ball whether batting or bowling we’re OK,” he said.
“We will have to work hard with our running between wickets and in the field on a slightly bigger ground.
“We haven’t put a complete game together yet with all facets but we are not that far away.
“Finals are a different game and anything can happen but hopefully we can put it all together and register a win.”
Both teams expect to be at full strength for the clash.
ACL captain Sean Barry said his team would go into their semi-final against Beauty Point “fairly confident” with a 1-1 record between the two teams this season.
“We’re coming off a loss last week but we had five or six players out and we will be back at full strength this week,” Barry said.
“We should have roughly the same side we had when we beat Cressy a couple of weeks ago.
“We think we play Uni pretty well and with a home game hopefully we will get some support up there as well.”
Barry said the key to defeating Beauty Point would be to get early wickets in their top order with the likes of Jason Savage, Brennan Cresswell and Beau Hills dangerous with the bat.
“We’ll rely on myself, Simon Chappell and John Kedey to get some wickets and also Chappell, Shaun Woods and Drew Clark with the bat.”
