Dogs, Dragons vie for glory

TWO of the Bendigo Bank Bendigo FNL’s greatest rivals, Golden Square and Sandhurst will clash in this Saturday’s senior footy grand final.

It’s a first senior grand final appearance for both clubs since Sandhurst beat Golden Square by 32 points in 2016.

Several players from both of those teams will be in action at the Queen Elizabeth Oval this Saturday from 2.20pm.

This season’s record stands at two-one in favour of the Christian Carter-coached Bulldogs.

The blue and gold was outplayed by the Dragons in the clash for the Ron Best Memorial Shield in round three on the QEO.

Square took the points against a Sandhurst team coached by Ash Connick, non-playing, and Bryce Curnow, playing, in the 12th round.

Most recent duel was the second semi in which the Dogs won by 14 points.

Sandhurst’s season looked shot as Strathfieldsaye led by three goals going into the final quarter of the preliminary final.

After a wayward tally of 5.12, the Dragons slammed on 6.3 to 2.1 to claim an 81-73 victory and a crack at Golden Square in the match which matters most.

Both teams have plenty of attacking power.

Golden Square has Joel Brett, Braydon Vaz and Jack Stewart to cap off chances created by the skilful and hard-running team-mates such as Tom Toma, Ricky Monti, captain Jack Geary, Ryan Hartley, Jake Thrum and Hamish Morcom.

Key players for the Dragons include ruckman Hamish Hosking, onballers Sam Conforti and James Coghlan, captain Lee Coghlan, and strong marking forwards Matt Thornton and Lachlan Wright.

There have been some memorable grand final clashes between these clubs.

It was 40 years ago Sandhurst beat the Dogs, 118 to 111.

This year marks the golden anniversary of the Ron Best-coached Sandhurst beating Golden Square for the premiership.

Best’s move from Golden Square to Sandhurst was akin to the legendary Ron Barassi leaving Melbourne to be captain-coach of Carlton.

On Saturday it will be Sandhurst’s reserves aiming to kick off a premiership double when they tackle Eaglehawk from 11.50am.

First-up at 9.15am will be Golden Square’s and Gisborne’s rising stars in the under-18s contest.