Katrina Fanning Shield: Grand Final Preview
The West Belconnen Warriors will taste Grand Final football in their inaugural season of the competition as they take on the Yass Magpies in the Katrina Fanning Shield Tier 1 decider.
The game is set to take place at 12:10 pm at Seiffert Oval on Sunday with the illustrious Katrina Fanning Shield all to play for.
The Magpies will be well rested after defeating the Bulls in the major semi-final as they search for back-to-back premierships.
The Warriors are in hot form heading into the final, downing the Bulls at Raiders Belconnen last weekend scoring 40 points including doubles from Grace Tai, Crystal Papalii and Lola Fletcher.
Papalii sits on seven tries since the revised split of the KFS competition, with Magpies centre Lucy Prosser leading the try-scoring tally on nine tries in six games.
Since the commencement of the Tier 1 competition, the Magpies have only suffered one loss in that time, which was to the Warriors.
Warriors’ co-captains Papalii and Zali Waihape know how significant making the final is to the team and the younger girls coming through.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to get the win for the club, representing them so that we can make way for the younger generation to come and join us as well,” Waihape said.
“Everyone coming back and connecting well was great and we’ll take that into next weekend and see how we go.”
The battle of the teams will see both teams go toe-to-toe, especially in strength and aggressiveness.
They’ve been our biggest competition this season, especially since both of our forward packs are pretty stacked but hopefully we bring it home this Sunday,” Papalii said.
Magpies’ prop Sami Afele says “It will mean everything” to win on the weekend having worked so hard to get where they are today.
“Everyone has put in the hard yards and the effort, so to cap it off with a win will be even better,” Afele said.
The playing group are fully aware that they can win back-to-back titles, but they are not putting any pressure and are just focussed on the game at hand.
“It would be awesome to win back-to-back but just winning in general is a great motivation because we have worked hard for this,” Afele said.
“Points will come for us as long as long as we play to our game plan and play for each other then it’ll happen,” Afele said on the strong bond the playing group has, “We definitely play a lot better because we are friends, everyone is working hard for the person next to them and that makes us all lift."
