A hard-fought preliminary final win over Dimboola has set up Horsham Demons to defend its premiership – but it has a monumental task to outplay the undefeated Horsham Saints.

The perennial grand finalists will battle it out for another Wimmera league A Grade premiership at Warracknabeal on Saturday.

But the two teams come into the match having faced vastly different roads.

Horsham Demons has been tested on many fronts this season, losing to not only the Saints, but also Dimboola and Southern Mallee Thunder.

The Demons have had to fight it out for many wins, but coach Georgie Carberry said that had made them match-fit for anything that was thrown their way.

“I think this year’s competition has been a lot more challenging for the top five and for us especially,” she said.

“We match up against all of the top five really well, and they’ve pushed us – even teams that aren’t in the top five – I think they’ve pushed us as well, which I think is so exciting and so good for the league. 

“It’s been really good that we’ve had really strong competition all year – we’ve had to work really hard. 

“We haven’t had to slack off. We’ve had to use our brand of netball and change it up when we’ve needed to and utilise our whole nine or 10 on the bench. 

“So it hasn’t been a smooth-sailing year for us. We’ve had to work really hard for it, which makes it even more exciting that we’ve made it into the big dance.”

Carberry led the Demons to victory in the preliminary final at Horsham City Oval – with scores 21-20 the home side’s way at half-time, Horsham’s experienced heads proved monumental.

Playing in her usual wing-attack position, Carberry’s attacking drive towards the goal circle was immense, particularly in the fourth quarter, and captain Ebonie Salter provided a cool head in defence as the Roos kept challenging. 

Horsham was out to a three-goal lead at three-quarter time, but was able to extend it out to a five-goal margin by game’s end. 

An injury-affected Dimboola stuck to its usual style of swinging positional changes, but the Demons held steady to march towards another grand final. Carberry and her team-mates now have their eyes firmly on grand final day, where they will need to unsettle the Saints to have a shot at back-to-back premierships. 

“I think we’re just going out there and playing our style netball, getting back to the basics and just having a crack, having a go and playing our brand,” she said.

For Horsham Saints, their path to the grand final was seemingly straightforward – a week off in week one of the finals series, followed by a 21-goal second semi-final win over the Demons meant they earnt themselves another week off before the grand final.

On the three occasions the Saints and Demons have met this season, the Saints have won by 20, eight and 21 goals.

The pressure is on the Saints to perform on the biggest stage – and captain Ashlee Grace – this year’s A Grade best and fairest – said the hunted tag did add some nervousness to the team.

“We’re the team that has everything to lose here, but we’ve got a lot of finals experience in our team and we’ve got a lot of good talent, which is setting us to play a good part,” she said.

“It’ll be a very good match, which is exciting.”

Grace said the return of defender Romi Miller to the Demons for the finals series had added extra depth to the Demons.

“We always knew Romi would be in the mix – it gives us a bit more challenge in the goal ring, but we played against Romi in the past as well, so it’s not anything new to us, just something that we haven’t had this year. It will be an exciting matchup in that goal ring.”

While Grace, in the centre, and the league’s leading goal-shooter Jorja Clode consistently provide strong games, grand finals usually come down to whole-team performances.

The Demons will need to not only negate the influence of the Saints’ stars but pull together to play their brand if they are to be any chance to defeat the hot favourites.

The two powerhouse netball clubs will also face each other in the B and C grade grand finals, as well as 17 and Under and 15 and Under.

The C Reserve grand final is between Stawell and Saints, while Demons and Stawell will contest the 13 and Under.

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