Gunditjmara Bulls president and player Coedie Carter-Clarke will be looking for an extra spark from the hometown Warrnambool crowd during Saturday's Limestone Coast Rugby League semi-final against Naracoorte Jets.
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The winner of the clash, to be played at Friendly Societies' Park from 1.30pm, will play either Stawell Mounties or Blue Lake Knights in the grand final the following week.
The Mounties and Knights play immediately after the Bulls from 3pm at Friendlies.
Carter-Clarke said it was an exciting opportunity for the club and its playing group, who finished second on the table during the home-and-away season.
"It's buzzing at the moment, our last two games have come off some pretty strong wins," he said of the vibe around the club ahead of the finals.
"We are the only side to have beaten Stawell this year which we're really proud of and hopefully we can take that into finals. Our last game was against the (Warrnambool) Raiders a few weeks ago and got them by about 50 points.
"We feel rested up and ready to go - the boys are keen. We're missing one of our main players for the finals series but aside from that we're at full strength."
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The experienced campaigner said it meant a lot from a club perspective to be in the position to play finals after the impacts of COVID-19 and was confident the group was up for the challenge.
"We're talking and preparing the same as usual," he said.
"But it means a lot to us, and also our supporters. They've got behind us all year. To play at home for the first semi means a lot to us. We can have our family and friends come watch and hopefully it really helps us on the day.
"Hopefully we'll move onto the next stage at Stawell for the grand final, but this is probably the strongest side we've ever had going into a semi-final.
"We've never made it past that stage but we're looking good now with the addition of the Fijian boys coming in.
"Some of our original players who've come from football and tried the sport have really adapted to rugby league so it's all come together nicely in time for finals."
He said the group had taken plenty of learnings throughout the season, particularly defensively after a wake-up call earlier this season.
"We had a bit of a shock to the system when the bottom side got their first win of the season and beat us," he said.
"We really focused defensively from then on, because our attack has always been there, our running game is good, our talent, speed and fitness is there, we just needed to fine tune our defence because we got whipped at training.
"We've really worked on that side of the game."
Gates open at 11am, with admission $5 for adults and free for children under 16 years of age.
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