The Saints play Evandale in a NTFAW division one first semi-final at Youngtown Oval at 10.50am.

Saints co-coach Dave Marshall said he was proud of his group's achievements to date.

"We haven't played finals before," he said.

"We started back when there were only eight sides.

"We won a few games but we didn't win enough to be in the top four.

"Because there were other sides like Evandale that were stronger and had been playing a lot longer."

READ MORE: NTFA MVP winners announced ahead of finals weekend

Marshall said the Saints had set their sights on finals at the start of the year.

"Now we've achieved that we'd like to go as far as we can," he said.

Marshall provided insight into how much effort had gone into making the finals.

"At times when we've had injuries and sickness, we've be relying on the depth around the club," he said.

"We've had to ask people to play that had retired, we had to get them back in the mix to help us get the numbers to get through.

"Even our club president had to play - that's the depth we had to use this year."

The Saints will have to get the job done without three regulars including co-coach and gun player, Jodie Clifford.

Marshall said Clifford had a broken finger, Tat Lee would miss with a knee injury and Holli Geeves was unavailable.

The Saints defeated the Eagles by 10 points in round three and 49 points in round 10. Their round 14 clash didn't go ahead due to COVID absences.

How would the Saints like to play?

"We've been working more in our skills," Marshall said.

"So not so much on the in and under contested stuff, we're working to spread and use our skills we've developed and hopefully run the ball.

"Rather than it be a congested game we'd like to see it be a bit more open."

Eagles coach Andrew Boyd said his group was excited and a bit anxious about what they may be able to achieve.

He reflect on the previous two encounters against George Town.

"The first game they ran over us in the last five minutes," he said.

"The second time, we were right in it up to our necks at three quarter-time and then they ran away in the last quarter. The third game was the COVID game we couldn't play so it'll be interesting."

Evandale had a bye last weekend and trained as per usual.

"We went and watched the Longford, George Town game last weekend," Boyd said.

"Just to get to an idea of where George Town sat and Longford put up a good fight in that game."

He said Eagles aimed to take the game on.

"We feel we're a shot. Finals football is different, the intensity goes up," he said.

"I'm hoping the girls are up and about for that. They're telling me they are so that's a good thing. We'll attack it head on. We want to try and get a score early and put some scoreboard pressure on."

While the Saints are new to finals, the Eagles are experienced campaigners.

They won a premiership in 2018 and made a semi-final in 2019.

"There's at least three premiership players from that team in 2018 still there," Boyd said.

"We'll draw on their experience, we've got another girl that plays for us that played in two premierships in a different comp so we'll draw on her experience too."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: