Ag College are determined to hold onto second spot when the host an in-form Griffith outfit at Beres Ellwood Oval on Saturday.
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The Blacks haven't lost since tackling Aggies earlier in the season and made it six straight wins with a 53-26 win over leaders Waratahs last week.
Six points separate the two sides with four rounds left before finals.
Coming off a disappointing 16-8 loss to Wagga City, Ag College coach Will Mitchell is looking to turn things around quickly to keep a buffer on the chasing pack.
Something he believes is even more important with the shortened finals series.
"Winning this week will put a nice bit of distance between us and Griffith," Mitchell said.
"That is the main thing.
"(The second chance) is so important and this year being a three-week finals series I think it is probably more important.
"The five-week finals period hurts the side who comes first and gets that week off then potentially another week off to only play one game of footy in 27 days."
With university holidays taking its toll, training sessions had been few and far between for Aggies.
However Mitchell has been pleased with how the side responded at training on Tuesday before an important session, combined with a memorial for the anniversary of Andy Stanham's death on Thursday.
"We've been lacking a bit of direction lately as far as what we've been trying to achieve," he said.
"You've got to be able to position teams where you want them to pull the trigger, rather than saying we've done a few phases let's go wide.
"We've gone through that."
Ag College are also holding their ladies day function and Mitchell hopes the team can rise for what will be another big occasion.
"It's our ladies day as well so the boys will want to put last week out of our mind," he said.
"We've got a lot of respect for Griffith, they are obviously playing good football with six in a row and will be coming in really confident.
"No doubt our defence has to be on point with some big ball runners that they have but we also need to starve them of the ball and make sure we get our fair share of it."
It was something they failed to capitalise on against the Boiled Lollies last week, however Mitchell hasn't made any changes to the side.
With front rowers Duncan Woods and Gabe Brown still expected to be sidelined for some time, Aggies scrum has been a worry over the last month while Charles Callaghan is still away.
Griffith have been forced to make a couple of changes with Johnny Brown (shoulder) and Dan Bozic (knee) to miss the clash with Will Valeri is unavailable.
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