Langbridge and his teammates get to put the mantra into practice on Saturday when they take on the Cessnock Goannas who can secure third spot and a double chance with victory at Cessnock Sportsground after Macquarie Scorpions lost their catch-up game against Wests 16-14 on Tuesday night.

It will be semi-final pressure from the kick of with a huge Goannas crowd expected including suriviving members of club's 1972 premiership team who are celebrating the 50^th anniversary reunion of their victory against Maitland.

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"I think at times you go into the finals and it's the bright lights of the finals and you think players need to come up with the big play to win and that's where you can get a little bit lost in those games," Langbridge said.

"It is all those little things like making sure you keep turning up in defence, keep pushing into space, pushing with your mate that's what wins semi-final football and big games.

"If everyone just focuses on those small little battles and small moments, then collectively you can come up with the big moments at the end.

"The big moments come, but you can't go chasing them, you've got to let them come to you and then take them when they arrive."

Langbridge admitted with Maitland having the minor premiership in the bag and a guaranteed week off and home semi-final, Cessnock may appear to have more motivation to win with third spot and a double chance up for grabs.

"We've got the minor premiership and we've got that week off, but when you have that break you want to make sure you put in a good performance the week before," he said.

"Otherwise you can be stewing on a potentially poor performance for a couple of weeks. We want to make sure we've got all our systems in place and we are all fired up and ready to go,

"Cessnock have been playing really well and from my understanding they were missing a couple of players in their loss to Central last Sunday. Cessnock are certainly going to be a tough task.

"But that's perfect for us. It's exactly what we want.

"We want to come up against the best at this time of year and see where we are at, see if there are any deficiencies in our game that we can work on over the next two weeks so that when we have that home semi-final at Maitland that we are ready to rock and roll."

Maitland defeated Macaquarie Scorptions 18-10 on Sunday after trailing 10-0 with the Scorpions tactics and high penalty count in the first half drawing the ire of Pickers coach Matt Lantry.

The Scorpions hit back saying both teams were guilty of penalties. Langbridge said the most important thing was the Pickers' second-half response.

"As a playing group we were probably a bit disappointed with how maybe we reacted in the first half to what they were trying to do in terms of a little big of niggle. That's a part of footy and we needed just to be better and I thought we were in the second half," Langbridge said.

"Once we got a bit of continuity and just focussed on playing footy and not what they were doing I think we performed very well and that was the pleasing part of a really good second half of footy.

"It's something we can use as a bit of a springboard for the rest of the year."

Langbridge said while the Pickers had plenty of scoring options, defence was the key to success in finals.

"The quality sides we are up against we can't allow them to score cheap tries, so that's something we've focused on since I've been at Maitland," he said.

"Matty (Lantry) has put a great emphasis and Max (Winkler) has done a great job of driving our defensive systems and making sure everyone is doing their job in defence.

"{Of course it just then becomes an attitude sort of thing and making sure we are in the right mindset in terms of our resilience when we make a mistake or conceded penalties that we are able to defend those errors.

"We've been trying to integrate that into our training over the past month."

Langbridge said he was excited about the prospect of playing in front of a big Maitland crowd in a semi-final again.

"It was so good on the weekend, the crowd there. It was awesome it just makes such a difference," he said.

"I'm really looking forward to that home semi-final as well. That semi at Maitland against Hills (2020 President's Cup) was incredible, to replicate something like that would be good."

Maitland sits on top of the first and reserve grade ladders and the under-19s are fourth and guaranteed finals.

The Pickers' Ladies League Tag remains undefeated after 15 games. They face Cessnock on Saturday.