By Justin Flynn <\/p>\n
A St Joseph\u2019s victory against St Mary\u2019s in tomorrow\u2019s (September 26) Geelong Football League grand final would make captain Alex Hickey the only four-time premiership player in club history.<\/p>\n
Hickey will also play his 150th game in the grand final at GMHBA Stadium, as will brother James, but milestones and accolades are well down on his list of priorities at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m probably more driven by making sure the guys that haven\u2019t done it get to taste what it\u2019s like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I feel like once you get that taste \u2013 people say, \u2018oh, you\u2019ve won a few, surely you\u2019re satisfied\u2019 \u2013 I feel like you get hungrier and that thirst to win more, it becomes a bit of an obsession.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want the guys that haven\u2019t done it to experience what it\u2019s like, so they can have that bond that I\u2019ve got to have with my mates in the previous era.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was during a car trip out to Colac that the Hickeys realised they were closing in on 150 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an interesting game to play a milestone in because it probably couldn\u2019t be less thought of to be honest,\u201d Hickey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably something that we\u2019ll reflect on later.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joeys go into the clash as favourites and have the chance to make some amends from last year\u2019s straight sets exit after an unbeaten home and away season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re blessed with having such a young group, and I think it was a really big lesson on what finals footy is compared to the home and away season,\u201d Hickey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we said after that (2024 preliminary final) defeat, that we wanted to take something away from that, and I guess we\u2019re ready to make amends.\u201d<\/p>\n
St Joseph\u2019s has six players who have kicked 19 goals or more this season \u2013 Oscar Morrison (42), Hunter Lewis (38), Paddy De Grandi (36), Mitch Chafer (29), Jack Mullen (22) and Felix Henderson (19).<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s one of our strengths and I think that\u2019s probably where we\u2019ve added from years gone, the last year in particular, is just where our goals are coming from, our avenues to goal,\u201d Hickey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a very dangerous forward line and it is a luxury to be bringing the ball down the field and have particularly three big targets that, if you\u2019re stuck, you stick the ball in the air and they\u2019re going to give you a contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the ball hitting the ground, we\u2019ve got such good crafty smalls so (it is) definitely an area we have taken a big step forward and not just our attacking, but the way they defend, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
St Mary\u2019s finished the home and away season in fourth spot, albeit by a tiny amount of percentage, and enters the grand final on a five-game winning streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve obviously come from other ends of the spectrum, it feels, and we\u2019ve played four elimination finals in a row,\u201d co-captain Brayden Ham said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re bloody stoked with how we\u2019ve gone this season. So, a little bit of a free hit on Friday and I feel like it\u2019s a 50\/50 battle.\u201d<\/p>\n
St Mary\u2019s wasn\u2019t expected to even get this far after an exodus of senior players during the off-season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a vibrant group and we\u2019ve just loved coming into training and I feel like we\u2019ve just been working hard at it and we don\u2019t really want the season to end,\u201d Ham said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt always helps having the group around you as we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ham, who played 45 games with Essendon, said it would be a welcome change to get to GMHBA Stadium after playing the finals series at a windswept West Oval.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve managed to play a few games there (and) I\u2019m very excited to get back there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m kind of sick of the hard decks out in the GFL. My calves don\u2019t have too much left, but one game over there, I\u2019ll be stoked to get over there for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ham said the venue would point towards a more-open style of play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a little bit on the outside,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously most finals are won in the contest, but I feel like you can get exposed a little bit out on that big deck. So I\u2019m hoping we can match them inside and then break away with our pace and some of our runners on the outside a little bit, comparative to what most other finals are won by. I feel like that\u2019s what we\u2019ll get them hopefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve (Joeys) got some really good key position players as well so it\u2019ll be hard to match the two of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good spine, they\u2019ve got a good spine, so whoever gets on top in that probably wins the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
GRAND FINALS<\/p>\n
Friday September 26, GMHBA Stadium<\/p>\n
Seniors: St Joseph\u2019s vs St Mary\u2019s, 2.10pm<\/p>\n
Reserves: Newtown & Chilwell vs St Mary\u2019s, 11.30am<\/p>\n
Under 18 Division 1: South Barwon vs Ocean Grove, 9.15am<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Justin Flynn A St Joseph\u2019s victory against St Mary\u2019s in tomorrow\u2019s (September 26) Geelong Football League grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-166821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}