GISBORNE will be chasing a long-awaited finals victory at A-grade netball
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level when it takes on Golden Square in tonight's Bendigo Football League elimination final on the QEO court.
The match starts at 7.10pm.
This year's meetings - Round 8 - Gisborne 56 defeated Golden Square 47.Round 17 - Golden Square 36 defeated Gisborne 35.
Golden Square coach - Kath Basilewsky: "We have had some periods of inconsistency throughout the year, but I think towards the end of the season we've started to pull our game together
."It's always just one quarter for us that lets us down a little bit.
"We've got a really versatile team, so I've played with combinations over the rounds and I'm probably a bit clearer now about what the strongest combinations are.
"We're most likely going to start with our starting line-up we played our finals series with last year.
"Gisborne is always a very physical side, they can put some great netball together and they've got some accurate goalers.
"We'll have to play a great game to beat them."
Golden Square A-grade squad: Kath Basilewsky, Louise Dupuy, Jacqueline Dupuy, Amy Davies, Jess Geary, Tara Henkle, Lia Marrone, Belinda Pinner.
Gisborne coach - Paige Rymer-Hamilton: "We proved we can beat them when we played the first time this year. "
I'll have a look at my team and see what I did that game and we'll go from there.
"The girls just have to believe in themselves now... they know they can mix it with the best, so hopefully they just bring their good game.
"(The finals hoodoo) is kind of a joke now, it's just one of those things. We'll either be heroes or villains come Saturday night, finally winning the final or we'll try again next year.
"Whether it's just the finals that get to the girls I'm unsure, but they're all getting older as a group, so hopefully the nerves won't be as bad."
Gisborne A-grade squad: Shirin Chang, Christine Harris. Annabel Stewart, Madeline Stewart, Tarryn Rymer, Polly Salter, Tiana Newman, Melissa Harris, Shelley Farrugia, Olivia Thomas.
The match: Golden Square and Gisborne have decent reasons for believing they can win this match, but there are question marks over both teams.
Golden Square has not hit the heights during the home-and-away season that it did last year, but with an unchanged line-up from last season's premiership success the yellow and blue have been there and done it before.It remains to be seen whether finals brings the best out of Square, but that's Gisborne's problem too.
It's been well-documented that Gisborne is yet to secure an A-grade finals win and a poor record, two wins and a draw from eight matches, away from Gardiner Reserve this year doesn't inspire much confidence.
However, Gisborne only lost by a goal to Square at MyJet Oval two games ago, so it should be close.
In tomorrow's A-grade qualifying final, Sandhurst and Kangaroo Flat do battle from 3pm.