The Storm squandered a golden opportunity 12 months ago to win their first flag and coach Darryl Wilson is well aware that his club needs to make the most of this year’s opportunity.

“When you get your chance you have to go for it,’’ Wilson said.

“There’s no guarantees that just because you’re in the final this year that you’ll be back in it the following year.

 “We haven’t gone over the top about last year’s loss.

 “Each year is different. We reassessed where we were at and we went out and recruited some players that we needed to address our deficiencies.

“We get heaviliy criticised for what we do, but we think we’ve got a happy medium.

“Two of the players we recruited live in Bendigo, two come from Melbourne and the other is from Maryborough, but wanted to play for us.”

The criticism Wilson refers to largely comes from rival BFNL clubs.

“We know there’s an air of dislike there, but we’re not concerned,’’ Wilson said.

“Maybe if we were on the bottom of the ladder we’d be liked more.

“Bottom line is we haven’t won anything. As far as we’re concerned we haven’t been successful yet.”

The experience of last year’s finals series has the Storm primed for this year’s decider.

The playing group looked confident at Thursday night’s final training session. 

“We were overawed a bit last year… there was a lot of guys last year that hadn’t played in grand finals,’’ Wilson said

“It’s been a lot quieter build-up this year. I think that’s because the guys are a lot more relaxed.”

The Storm’s biggest issue in the lead up to the grand final has been who would make the final 22.

Key defender Jayden Donaldson (hamstring) and key forward Tom Bartholomew (knee) forced their way into the side at the expense of young duo Jake Dickens and Nathan Moffat.

Bartholomew hasn’t played for two months, but his four-goal haul in last year’s losing grand final side would sit firmly in the memory bank of Wilson and Sandhurst coach Brett Fitzpatrick.

“We wanted to wait to see how Tommy pulled-up from training,’’ Wilson said.

“He’s such a classy player… he’s hard to leave out.

“Jayden has been very good for us all year. As a key defender his kicking, marking and ability to get across and help out the other defenders is vitally important to us.”

Bartholomew’s return gives the Storm a front six that would make any defender quiver. Sam Mildren, Daniel Geary, Kris Lea and Bartholomew are the marking targets, with the class of Stephen Milne and Lachlan Sharp at their feet.

“We’re going in with the same game plan as we have all year,’’ Wilson said.

“We’ve rotated Kris Lea and Michael Pilcher through the ruck all year and we’ll do that again on Saturday.

“They’ll rotate forward as well and with Tommy back we can stretch the Sandhurst defence.”

Down the other end of the ground the Strathfieldsaye defence has been stingy all season.

The potential match winner for Sandhurst is livewire forward Mitch Dole.

Unheralded defender Lachlan Bonney did a good job on Dole in the second semi-final a fortnight ago.

“Our aim is to make sure we get the ball going our way,’’ Wilson said.

“That’s the best way to stop Sandhurst’s forwards having any influence on the game.”

Having coached Colbinabbin to three HDFL flags, a BFNL premiership would be the highlight of Wilson’s coaching career.

 “I’m only a small part of it.  The coach gets a lot of accolades, but a win would be a great reward for the players, the committee and the supporters.”