Fun the focus for injury-ravaged Junee in final round clash with Young

The Diesels will end the shortened Group Nine season with a last-round road trip to Alfred Oval to take on the finals-bound Cherrypickers.

Junee sit in fifth position on the Group Nine table with just the one win but have proven competitive, losing by no more than 16 points all season.

Injuries have hit Junee hard this year, like others in Group Nine, and Schubach revealed having some fun in Sunday's final hit-out will be a big focus.

"Just to have a bit of fun this weekend. Enjoy the game," Schubach said.

"It's sort of been pretty flat out, high intensity games of footy so I just want the boys to go out there and get them to have a bit of fun and enjoy the footy game.

"The games have been tough and been a bit strenuous so hopefully we just finish on a high and have a bit of fun."

An already long casualty list grew from Saturday's 16-6 loss to Gundagai.

Patrick Guthrie copped a broken nose and is in doubt for Sunday's trip to Young, while a number of other players are nursing soft-tissue injuries.

"They'll probably play again this week because it's just one last game," Schubach said.

"It's been one of them seasons where we didn't get a good hit-out or a good pre-season in and it's shown with injuries across everywhere. You see it in the NRL and AFL too.

"We probably have six or seven first graders out now, which hurts, but we're still playing okay footy.

"We haven't been beaten by a big score all season but we just haven't been able to put it together because we didn't have a pre-season at all, because we signed blokes late."

Schubach said the latest loss to Gundagai was a perfect example of how close Junee are to the teams at the top of the table.

"We've been in every game. On the weekend it was 12-6, then we got a bloke sent for 10 and they scored as soon as we went a man down. That put them up 16-6 and that's how it stayed for the rest of the game," he said.

"We didn't play too bad. Gundagai had a few out so they were a bit underdone but between our two senior grades, we had a lot of players out, so we were a bit underdone as well. We had blokes playing big minutes but also blokes playing half-injured and a bit battered."

The injury toll at the club contributed to Junee's decision to forfeit reserve grade last weekend. It is an option the club hopes they can avoid against Young on Sunday.

"We got a couple more niggling injuries out of the weekend," he said.

"We had to forfeit reserve grade last weekend because we didn't want blokes having to come out and play two games, especially in warmer weather. Hopefully we can field two sides this weekend but we're not going to bust everyone up just for the sake of one more game."

Schubach, in his second season in charge at Junee, is undecided on his future.

"I'm up in the air at the moment. Just taking it one thing at a time," he said.

"I'll wait and see. Wrap this season up and see how we go."

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