Raymond Terrace host Northern Suburbs in front of their old boys in a game Norths must win to claim back-to-back minor premierships.

The two teams are locked on 46 points at the top of the table, however, Norths have a bye to come and can not add to their regular season points tally in the final round.

“It’s a big game, we’ll definitely be looking to wrap up the minor premiership this weekend,” Raymond Terrace all-rounder Nick Savage said.

“If we want to win a premiership we’ve got to beat Norths somewhere along the line in the finals so it would be good to get one on them in this game and get a psychological edge.

“Norths are a very good side and we know we need to play a lot better than we have the past couple of weeks to get the points.

“I think we’re up for it. I think we’re up for the challenge, but we’ll see how we go.”

All three games on Saturday have repercussions for the finals. Western Suburbs and Thornton can go a long way to cementing a semi-final spot with victory in their clash at Thornton No.1.

City United need to win their final two matches to guarantee a finals spot, however, they have struck Kurri Weston coming off a drought-breaking win against Norths last round and at Kurri Central on old boys day.

A loss would leave the reigning premiers’ fate to other results to make the finals. They would need to beat Raymond Terrace in the final round and rely on Wests and Thornton to lose their games against Kurri Weston and Easts respectively.

Norths and Terrace have booked theirs spots, but Savage said regardless of which two teams fill the remaining two positions it promised to be a tough finals series and any team was capable of making the grand final.

Savage said Thornton were the form side of the competition and posed a real threat with spinner Dan Willis taking plenty of wickets at club and representative level.

However, he said of all the teams in the competition Wests were the best placed to combat his influence on a game.

“Wests are such a dangerous team they could come out and score 300,” he said.

“Dan is a very good bowler, but Wests play spin really well. Aaron Bills got nine wickets against Kurri Weston and we played Wests the next week and he didn’t take one wicket.

“I would back Wests to win that every day of the week. Ever since I’ve played them all their good batsmen play spin very well.”

Wests co-captain Mitchell Fisher predicts Saturday’s match against Thornton will be one of the game’s of the season.

“Dan Willis has been in pretty good form taking a five-for and backing up in the John Bull. It should be a good challenge, but I’m backing the boys to get the job done,” Fisher said.

“Their batsmen are in great form. It’s going to be a cracking cricket game.”

Fisher said Wests could make the finals with one win from the final two games, but would be pressing hard to win both.

“We definitely want to win both and continue our run into the finals,” he said.

The Plovers had the bye last round, but the game before fell two wickets short of claiming an outright win against Kurri Weston.

“I think everyone wants success again. It’s all come together since the break, especially the Kurri game we completed a full game finally and I think everyone is enjoying the winning feeling,” Fisher said.

“We are all working hard for it. We’re good mates and we’re really supporting each other.

“Justin Lantry has got us off to two fliers in the past two games. He has been training really hard and always looking to do extras so credit where credit is due.

“The middle order we’ve got with Aaron (Mahony), Merch (Luke Merchant), Slim (Andrew Trappel) and Copo (Mark Copus), who got a 93 not out last game, are hitting form.

“We’ve got good depth in our bowlers. We actually had to drop one medium pacer for the Kurri game, Matt Shone who hadn’t done too much wrong but we were probably a bowler heavy.

“We’ve got Keals (Luke Kealy) and myself with the new ball and then there’s Riley (Harrison) and Merch. Merch is bowling well he finished with 5-8 in the second innings against Kurri which was great.

“He’s certainly knocking on the door and wanting to take the new rock, which puts pressure on myself and Keals.”