With previous fourth-placed sides facing the minor premiers away from home, the change in structure now means the Hurricanes host the fifth-placed Thunder, repeating Friday's Hobart fixture.

Coach Adam Griffith said the opportunity to play at home as opposed to the potential trip to Brisbane if the Heat had beaten the Melbourne Renegades, was priceless.

"We've been on the road so much lately and that was the biggest thing the boys were talking about is the ability to train at home, sleep in your own bed and roll in on game day as you normally do at a home game," he said.

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"We would have been on a flight to Brisbane, trained up there and played - it's given us the best preparation, the boys will have the day off and then get stuck into it."

Coming into the finals campaign off the back off a three-game winning streak against the Renegades, Thunder and Adelaide Strikers, the former South Launceston paceman said an unscheduled training on Marvel Stadium just over a week ago flicked the group's switch.

"When we left Launceston [after the Strikers loss] we had a good chat about what we wanted to get out of the rest of the tournament and there was a bit of chat around trying to win a couple of games and improve on stuff for next season.

"Then when we got to Melbourne for the Renegades game, we sat back as the staff and thought we can still make this, especially after the way Heat lost to Renegades after us in Launnie.

"We had a really good training session when we weren't going to train and the boys really got into that and enjoyed it.

"The energy and vibe from there was really good - it wasn't of a team that had lost those amount of games in a row."

Heading into Thursday's final, which has been dubbed as 'the eliminator', the Hurricanes will only have one of their international recruits - Afghan leg-spinner Qais Ahmad - on their team sheet with David Miller returning to South African duties for the series against England.

Struggling early in the tournament, the 30-year-old Protea turned his fortunes around with a unbeaten knock of 90 against the Strikers in Launceston - working his way to 198 runs at an average of 22 for the tournament.

With no international replacements available for selection, as they have to have represented the side during the home-and-away season, Caleb Jewell, Simon Milenko and Jake Doran are all in the mix for a recall to the side.

"We've just got to assess what best option is to bat where, it's more about role for us.

"Is it someone to come in and bat at six and we move McDermott and Bailey up or is it it someone to come in and replace him at four?

"That's one of the positives of our program, we have three young batters that we can bring in."

The Thursday night contest, which doubles as George Bailey's definite last representative cricket game in Tasmania, gets underway at 7.40pm.

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