Top spot up for grabs in Wagga Cricket

Wagga City are the only team to get the better of the Blues so far, across either format, and can leapfrog them into first place with another win at McPherson Oval on Saturday.

However South Wagga captain Luke Gerhard believes there were plenty of lessons learned from the seven-wicket loss leading into Christmas.

"Our batting was good enough last time we played them but we just didn't take new ball wickets and didn't take our chances," Gerhard said.

"We dropped a couple of chances, I think we dropped Jon Nicoll on a duck and also dropped Josh Thompson early so the biggest thing is taking our chances."

He's hoping the big match up is just what the side needs with finals just a fortnight away.

"It's a game we've been building towards for the whole season really," Gerhard said. "You want to be coming good at this time of year and what better way is there than up against them.

"We'll take it like it is a finals game and hopefully can build some momentum heading into finals."

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The two teams will also play off for the Max Knight Challenge Cup.

Named after the only 'legend' of their club, it only adds to the incentives for South Wagga.

"It's another thing to play for Max Knight as it is still pretty hard to talk about what he meant to the club and it's massive for us again to play for the Max Knight Cup," Gerhard said.

However they are still not at full strength despite the return of Alex Smeeth.

While Smeeth is back in his opening role with both bat and ball, Joel Robinson is set to continue his stint as a makeshift opener with Brayden Ambler unavailable.

While Ambler is a massive loss, Gerhard is thrilled to have Smeeth back.

"It sums up our season as we've always missed one or two players each game we've played," he said.

"Ideally we would like to have our full strength team now for the next three weeks but it is not to be but to have him (Smeeth) back is massive for our team.

"He's another leader in the group and it will be good to have him back.

Noah Harper is also out with Pat Cooke to take his place.