Nick Collins to debut for Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes against Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong

Collins will make his debut for the Goannas in the crucial clash against Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong at Mangoplah Sportsground.

Collins signed with MCUE before the June 30 clearance deadline and only arrived home from an overseas holiday earlier in the week.

A defender with more than 120 games experience in the North Eastern Australian Football League (NEAFL), Collins will be a handy inclusion as the Goannas look to cement their finals berth.

"It is definitely exciting to bring Nick in for his first game for the club," MCUE coach Jeremy Rowe said.

"We've all been waiting patiently for this moment to arrive and now it has it's great to be bringing someone of his class and calibre in.

"I think its important to note that because of his unique build up to the season we feel like we do need to give him a period of time to settle in and find his touch, his match conditioning and get generally familiar with his surroundings so we're not setting the bar too high for Nick over the first couple of weeks but just bringing his experience and class in is certainly something that our side will be better for even before he gets too far into his little mini-season."

Collins is one of three inclusions for MCUE, along with Rowe and ruckman James Scott.

Jake Hindmarsh is expected to return from a calf injury after next week's bye, while Jesse Cunningham and Pat Killalea will come back from injury and holiday through reserve grade.

The Goannas got back on track with a hard-fought 13-point win over Leeton-Whitton last Saturday, after consecutive losses to Wagga Tigers and Coolamon.

Rowe is not panicking about MCUE's form heading into Saturday's important showdown.

"If you put things in perspective we've still won five of seven," he said.

"During that period we've played some footy that we're incredibly happy with and that doesn't just go away after a couple of weeks. If you've won five of your last seven you're generally going to be pretty happy and our losses came against the top couple of sides within the competition.

"But over the last three weeks...we certainly haven't been happy with our performance in a four-quarter sense and most games we've come away with some really, clear cut room for improvement areas that we have to work on and have worked on.

"So we're certainly nowhere near the finish of our development and we're looking to use the next four weeks to get ourselves into position where we're playing as good a footy as we possibly can and if we do that we think the wins and losses will do the job to get us into the finals."

GGGM proved too good for MCUE at Ganmain Sportsground earlier in the year, kicking nine straight goals to win by 55 points.

Rowe believes the Lions are the perfect test for his team.

"Coming up against a great test like Ganmain is perfect for this weekend," he said.

"They obviously knocked us off and exposed some real holes in the way that we were playing last time round.

"We know that they're an opponent that definitely bring it every single game and every single quarter and every single moment really so they're as good a test as what you'd like and we're obviously hoping to show that we've come a fair way since we last played them."

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