In round 15 of the Picola League senior football, the Mathoura Timbercutters are away from home to take on second-placed Strathmerton.
Before the league bye last weekend, Mathoura took on top-of-the-table Katandra in a competitive game and the Cutters ultimately lost by 42 points.
Despite the scoreline, coach Tim McCormick said the club’s coaches were all impressed by how they played against the best-placed side in the competition.
“They kicked away with around four goals in the last quarter, which left it around a 40-point win.
“If not for those couple of goals at the end, we held them to around a 20-point margin for most of the game.
“Against the top-side in the competition in Katandra, we were pretty happy with that.
“It came about with good team-first, contested footy and the conditions that were a little bit greasy.”
McCormick said it was also a decent result given the Cutters were missing a few players.
After last week’s rest, he said most of those players will be returning this weekend.
“We had a few players missing out due to injury, illness and being overseas.
“Fingers crossed, everyone should be back following the bye except one.”
With a bolstered playing list, McCormick said the Cutters will hold themselves responsible for the future of their season.
“We are in control of our own destiny. It is in our own hands.
“If we can get some wins to end the season and some other results go our way, we might be able to sneak back into the eight.
“We will see it as though we have nothing to lose, and hopefully we can play with a bit of freedom.”
The Cutters’ final four games of the home and away season appear to be difficult, but the team is not planning to shy away from the challenge.
“We’ll be trying to win games, not just score mitigation or limitation. If we make it, great, if not we’ll know we left nothing out there.”
The challenge is big again this week, facing Strathmerton which defeated Yarroweyah by 212 points in round 14 before the bye.
Strathy boasts a leading goal-kicker in Tim Looby, who is currently on 97 goals for the season. Twenty of those were against Yarroweyah last round.
McCormick said the Cutters’ goal will be to keep him from getting to 100 in tomorrow’s game.
“In the corresponding game last year, we only lost to them by around seven points and kept him (Looby) to only one goal.
In seasons past we’ve matched up pretty well with them.
“Jack Duggan will get the job on Looby again and, ideally, the midfielders can provide a bit of assistance so the ball isn’t delivered into their forward line too easily.
“If he does kick his 100th, we hope it will be late in the last quarter, and it doesn’t matter too much if we get on top.
“Regardless, we will have a red hot crack this weekend.”