Opposing coaches Jamie Hayward and Wade Anthony are confident they have the right formula to deliver the goods ahead of Saturday’s NWFL grand final between Ulverstone and Latrobe.
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The two sides have played three times this season, with Ulverstone taking the first two encounters by three and 13 points respectively before Latrobe hit back with a 23-point win in the final round of the season.
Hayward said the round 18 defeat, combined with a loss to Penguin the week before, had a silver lining.
“We definitely learned a lot and understand Latrobe’s strength’s a lot more,” he said.
“We had some players missing on that day which will be a key to our match-up’s this time around and felt like we lacked a bit of pace that time around.
“In hindsight, the two roster games we lost were a blessing in disguises because it opened our eyes to what we were missing.
“We’ve made a few personnel changes and brought in a couple of kids that have some pace.
“We’re not reading too much into the wins against them or the loss, but we think we now have a pretty good grip on what we think we need to do to win.”
Anthony is banking on some extra homework against the Robins to help give his side the edge as they chase their sixth win in succession and a fifth premiership in eight seasons.
“We’ve studied the opposition pretty hard because we thought we might be playing them this time of the year.” Anthony said.
“We know how they line up generally – they may try a couple of different things – but we think we match up pretty well on them.
“I see they brought in (John) Holland as another tall, but we’ve got (Tom) Reynolds added to our ruck department as well and we think we can stretch them in a couple of areas.
“I think potentially up forward we might have the edge on them, and maybe through the midfield we can stretch them as well.
“We’ve got a number of targets up forward that are all in pretty good form at the moment.
“Whether they (Ulverstone) can match up comfortably on all our guys, we will wait and see.”