Boomers and Melrose will battle for pre-finals bragging rights at Glen Park on Sunday.
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Neither side can drop lower than fourth on the table and can’t catch Myrtleford on top, meaning they’ll both face a team between fifth and seventh (Albury City, Albury United and Twin City) in the knockout phase.
Boomers’ forward Tanner Browne believes his side will start favourites.
“We’ve been training pretty hard and we’re preparing for finals, so we’re just trying to figure out our best squad for finals,” he said.
“We’ll come out hard and hopefully get the three points.
“They’ve got a good team that’s pretty similar to us, they’ve got a few young blokes as well, but we’ll try match them as best we can.
“We’ve had a very good season, we’ve beaten Myrtleford twice, but against some of the lower teams we could have performed a bit better.
“When we go up against the top teams, we look very comfortable and look as if we can win finals when that comes around.
“We’re pretty sure we’ll have a bit of switch around as we try to get that team right for finals, but nothing’s confirmed yet.”
Melrose captain Josh O’Brien admits Boomers always offer up a tough challenge.
“I think structurally they’re probably the best team in the comp, (coach) Andrew (Grove) has got them set up in a particular way, so they’re very hard to break down and the players know their roles,” O’Brien said.
“Myrtleford and Wangaratta probably set the standard, but Boomers and us are relatively well matched and player for player we’re just as good, if not better.
“We set some internal expectations this year and challenging for the cup was one of them.
“Myrtleford have just been a class above and credit to them, but we’ve turned our focus to the cup now and been working on our combinations the last couple of weeks.
“The next tier of teams, Albury City, Albury United and Twin City all have strengths and weaknesses, so I don’t think we’re particularly fond of playing one team.”
Melrose is set to welcome back a host of experienced names including coach Kade Rixon and his brother Trent, Josh Fluss, Evan Rawluk, as well as Alex Gorka from suspension.
“For me, he’s (Fluss) the biggest in, he’s a class above and straightens up the whole team,” O’Brien added.
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