The First Semi Final or Minor Semi will be held at Varley Oval in Inverell between the Saints and the Eagles. The Saints will be keen to make amends after their lack lustre effort last week in Armidale. The Eagles on the other hand have surpassed everyone's expectations this year bar their own. They will be out to go one better this week and what better way to do that then to beat the reigning premiers and put them out of this year's finals. The Saints got a big wake call last week when they went into last week's game thinking they were a chance of winning and playing the Kangaroos the following week. This week they need to be totally focused on the game at hand. The Eagles certainly have the personnel and desire to win this game but what they don't have is a win over the Saints in over 5 seasons. The Eagles have very good mid fielders in Duane Shawcross and Mark Barrow and with Tim Cooper, in exceptional form, and Dan Hughes up forward the Saints are going to have their work cut out for them. The Saints do have a very good backline with the two Kimmince boys, Jono Elphick, Dave Vidovic and Corey Borthwick the Eagles forwards won't have an easy time of it. The mid fields of both teams are fairly evenly matched but the Saints may just have the edge with late season recruit Leigh Turner. Turner has just come back into football after some six years out of the game and has got better and better each week to the point where he is their preferred first choice ruckman. This has freed up Justin Pay to take on a ruck roving role that he is excelling at.
Prediction: The last time these two meet was in Inverell and in a high scoring game that the Saints won by 40 points. So with that in mind I'm tipping the Saints by 16 points.
In the Second Semi Final or Major Semi the Kangaroos will host the New England Nomads at No.1 Oval in Tamworth. This is going to be a cracking game as they are one all this year and on the line is the rights to host the Grand Final. The Kangaroos only defeat this year was at the hand of the Nomads in Armidale in round 7. Their round 14 clash was moved from No.1 Oval, as it was closed due to wet weather, to the Kennel in Gunnedah. In that game neither side had their best team on the ground, but it was the Nomads who had less of its stars. Last week the Nomads won well over the Saints and still did not have Hamish Ross in the side. I'm not sure how well Ross would have handled the conditions, but with weather forecasts at the moment indicating that it will be fine and 20 degrees it is tailor made for him to take control. The Kangaroos have a good honest backline and a gun mid field with Cotter, Cam Douglas, Mitch Douglas, Hudson and Maloney rotating through there it will be where they will win the game. In the ruck department the Nomads Temoso appears to be a bit better than the Kangaroos Ray and this will be crucial for both teams. If Temoso can not only dominate the taps but put it to the advantage of his mid field to get first use the Kangaroos will have go defensive in the mid field instead of their normal offensive game. In the Kangaroos forward line they have rotated their resting mid fielders there to great effect when Dan Overeem injured his ankle earlier in the year. That has been a great find for them and now that Overeem is back they have a very potent forward line.
Prediction: This is a really tough game to pick but because it is in Tamworth and the Kangaroos have only lost one game all year and they deserve to go into this game as favourites and they will win by 9 points. But I will not be surprised if the Nomads win.
Last Modified on 29/08/2011 23:08