The opportunity to knock Leeton-Whitton out of fifth spot and help Coolamon into the top five will be no motivation for Turvey Park on Saturday.
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The Bulldogs will have a major say on who finishes in fifth spot as they take part in one of two ‘live’ games in the Riverina League final round.
Turvey Park will host fifth-placed Leeton-Whitton at Maher Oval, while sixth-placed Coolamon will take on arch-rivals Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong at Kindra Park.
A win over the Crows will open the door for the Hoppers to sneak into fifth spot but that does not interest Turvey Park coach Truman Carroll in the slightest.
“Not at all,” Carroll said.
He instead is focused on getting the best out of his young list in the last game of the year.
The Bulldogs defeated Narrandera by 42 points last week and will go into Saturday with confidence as they search for back-to-back wins.
“The thing this year has just been to play four quarters, four consistent quarters,” Carroll explained.
“I feel we got close to that last week against Narrandera and to kick our best score of the year in those conditions was very pleasing.
“Hopefully we can keep on improving and show our competitiveness.”
Daniel Hitchens is unavailable for Turvey Park and he will be the only forced change to the Bulldogs team that won last week.
The club was hopeful of bringing in Dane Campbell for one last game at Maher Oval before he retires, but he has not recovered from injury in time.
Leeton-Whitton defeated Turvey Park by 27 points at Leeton Showground earlier in the year. The Bulldogs were only five points down at half-time but were edged out in the second half.
Carroll said that performance will give Turvey Park confidence ahead of Saturday’s final round clash.
“I think we can beat them, definitely,” he said.
“The last time we played them we had our opportunities to beat them but we only had one on the bench for the last quarter, no Matt Bailey or Chris Cerato, and only got beat by 20-odd points.
“This is a good opportunity to beat them on our home deck. It’s all starting to come together at the right time, the penny might have dropped with the young fellas.”
The game against the Crows will end Carroll’s one-year tenure as Turvey Park senior coach.
The Bulldogs have won five games for the season, up one on last year, and have blooded a number of the club’s promising young players.
Carroll is happy with the results, given they lost more players over the off-season than they gained, but is not about to get sentimental ahead of his last game.
“It’s just a normal game,” he said.
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