FINLEY faces another stern test when it hosts Barooga on Saturday.
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After going down to an undefeated Tongala last week, the Cats expect little in the way of respite when they take on the Hawks.
“It will be tough,” Cats co-coach Matt Jackson said.
“They’ve always been a good team and last year they beat us both times by less than a couple of goals.
“And they’ve recruited well again while they’ve managed to keep a lot of blokes, so they’ll still be pretty handy.”
But despite losing to Tongala last week, there were plenty of positive signs for the Cats.
After a strong start, they led at half-time with Richard Findlay bagging five goals, before Tongala hit their straps and ran over them.
“We’re working hard on our game, though we’ve had a bit of a slower start,” Jackson said.
“There were a lot of positive signs last week and, hopefully, we’ll get a few more back from injury this week and we’ll go all right.
“It’s a couple of tough games in two weeks — we need to move the ball better, smarter.
“Just in our run and carry, we’ve probably fallen off a little bit from last year.
“That’s something we’re working on and have started to come back.
“It’s a bit of a new-look forward line and it’s just starting to get there now.”
There have been some solid performances for the Cats, with Jackson praising the eff- orts of backman Ben McKie.
“He arrived last year and this year he’s been great,” he said.
“On-baller Tim McKenzie has been fantastic and so have a couple of local blokes like Lachie Small were great on the weekend.
“The main thing now is putting four quarters together and having no lapses.”