Player Column – Ben Saunders Qualifying Final

THERE'S a massive buzz around the club at the moment and the boys are super excited. A lot of us haven’t played in a final and I haven’t played in one, so it's just a good feeling and a good time of year to be involved. We've been hanging out for it to happen for a few years now.

When I first came to South, I thought we would have snuck into the finals at least once over the five years I've been here but it hasn’t happened and in a way, it has made us appreciate even more how important this is. We've had our season wrap up at the end of the home and away season and it's not that enjoyable so this is super exciting for everyone involved.

We had Hocks speak to the group over the weekend and he's 28 years old and he has only ever played in two finals. One was in under-15s and one was in the 18s when they lost by 10 goals. He spoke really passionately about how important this time is and how you don’t want to take playing finals for granted. We won't be taking it lightly and we'll be trying to soak up the experience as much as we can.

I've never played a league final but my last game at Claremont was the reserves grand final in 2011 and we won that. That's the last final I've played in but obviously to do that at league level is another step up and I can't wait to experience that now for the first time this year.

Saturday will be a massive day for our whole club with all three grades hosting qualifying finals. We've had a great year in terms of wins and losses and it filters down from the people are running the club all the way to the coaches and the players that we are in good shape. There's a good feeling here and we have all three grades playing at home so hopefully all our supporters get down and get behind us.

I was lucky enough to win another Bernie Naylor Medal this year as well after kicking a few snags on Saturday, which is something I'll probably look back on more in the future as opposed to now where I have my sights solely focused on playing finals. I’m glad it’s out of the way though, as team success is something we have all been striving to achieve. I couldn’t have gotten anywhere near it if it wasn’t for the boys. I think a few of the boys were looking for me throughout the day which I am very grateful for. 

We started the game really well against Perth and kept them goalless in the first half so we had a lot of ball down our end which was nice. We had a job to do on the weekend and I think we executed it really well. It's often easy to be complacent in a game like that but we executed well early and were able to get through the rest of the game injury free.

Mase did remind me how many he needed before the game and the way he started I thought he was going to get there. We've managed to kick 98 goals between us this year and it's been awesome. I've loved playing with Mase. He has been awesome for our forward-line and his contested marking is really strong overhead and you would back him in against anyone in the WAFL, especially on his day. On his day I don’t think anybody can get near his hands. He will be a vital cog in our finals campaign. 

Not only have I enjoyed playing alongside Mase, it is all of the other boys as well. We've got Blaine Johnson, Cooky, Schloithey, Stevie Edwards, Tys Pickett and Strommy there with us so it's been really good playing with this forward-line. We have a really good dynamic going and on our day, anyone could bag out. It takes some pressure off blokes like myself and Mase to kick goals and in turn it makes it easier for us to do it because if we get shutdown, someone else will pop up.

We now can't wait to take on West Perth on Saturday. We're expecting a strong contest from them and I think they will throw everything at us. It's hard to expect anything other than their best in finals football. It's something I haven’t played before, but I'm expecting them to be on right from the start. We have to bring our best and hopefully we can do it.

All ill focus on from here are the things I can control. I'll be doing everything I possibly can to help the team win this week. We have a great group down at the kennel and hopefully we can get the job done against the Falcons.

WOOF