THE pain of last year’s grand final defeat still lingers for Sandhurst as it prepares for another clash with reigning BFNL premier Strathfieldsaye.
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The Dragons defeated Strathfieldsaye by 79 points in round three last year, but have lost their past four matches against the Storm, including a 55-point defeat in the 2014 grand final and a 13-point loss in round one this year.
“There’s some disappointment from the guys emanating from last year and the first game this year.
“In round one we felt as though we matched Strathfieldsaye across the ground for a good percentage of the game, but once the game opened up a bit we lost ground.
“We feel as though we’ve improved quite a bit from last year, but at the same time so has Strathfieldsaye. We’re certainly better equipped physically this year to tackle Strathfieldsaye.
“We had three under-18 kids in the grand final side last year. The guys that have come in this year have good body size.
“We’ll have a crack at it on Saturday and try and get a result that favours us.”
Win, lose or draw, Fitzpatrick said both teams will benefit from Saturday’s result.
“By default both teams will have a few things up their sleeve for later in the year,’’ he said.
“Our structure will change when we get (ruckman) Tim (Martin) and Ryan Haythorpe back and Strathfieldsaye has plenty of players to come back in.”
Fitzpatrick said Haythorpe could have played this weekend had the game been a final.
“Ryan tweaked a groin last week and we didn’t want to take any risks,’’ Fitzpatrick said.
James Coghlan, arguably Sandhurst’s most improved player this year, will get the biggest defensive job.
The teenager would have played on Stephen Milne had the former St Kilda star been playing. He’ll now get the job on Lachlan Sharp – a task some would argue is more difficult than tackling Milne.
“There’s no weak links with Strathfieldsaye,’’ Fitzpatrick said.
"(Shaun) Everington and (Matt) Smith set things up through the middle and the likes of (Tom) Dowd are hard to stop on the outside.”