As the race to the Allan Matheson Shield finals hits its crescendo in the next fortnight, the Redlegs are as well placed as any team, coming off a dominant 16-104 to 2-76 victory over a red-hot Shepparton Park squad last week.
With other contenders faltering around it, Tallygaroopna skip Mark Ryan sees a real opportunity for his side this weekend to make another statement and head into March full of confidence.
“Heading into this week there is just so much on the line, so it is important for us to put our best foot forward again and secure that second spot,” Ryan said.
“We were pretty happy with last week’s result against Shepparton Park, everyone took a lot of confidence out of that and are once again shaping up to have a pretty strong line-up on the green with great balance through all the rinks.”
Kyabram on the other hand comes into this clash a shell of itself after suffering tough defeats to Park and Stanhope in its past two outings.
Hoping to have Scottish bowls legend Alex Marshall suit-up for this clash, the Bombers’ hopes were crushed last week, with the ‘‘GOAT’’ instead coming to the club for a sportsman’s night on Friday.
Now with Kyabram finding itself at risk of falling out of the top four altogether, Ryan expects to see a fired-up Bombers unit come to Tallygaroopna Bowls Club on Saturday afternoon.
“You have got to be wary of the wounded bull, you never know what to expect,” he said.
“They certainly have class across their line-up, and we had a good game against them last time at Kyabram ending in a draw, so hopefully being on our turf will give us that advantage and we can continue our strong form.”
For the Redlegs it is all about maintaining their strong form and continuing to build into the finals series where they hope to be the side that ends Shepparton Golf’s reign over weekend pennant division one bowls.
“For us it is all about maintaining that intensity we had last week, the energy we put on to the green was some of the best I have seen all season, so we just need to repeat that and keep it going into March,” he said.
“We are certainly up and about now.”
