ST KILDA is leaving no stone unturned in its quest for an elimination final win over Adelaide, marking out the narrow Norwood Oval boundary on its wide RSEA Park training base.
In a lesson taken from the club's men's side – which has played at Norwood for the past two Gather Rounds – cones were put out on the oval to get the players used to the new dimensions.
"We think our best is good enough to match them, particularly on their home ground as well. Last season, we played them at Norwood Oval and gave it a really good shake, so we're keen to get over there and crack in," skipper Hannah Priest said.
"That's the beautiful thing about AFLW, we have so many different ovals and environments to play in. We'll adjust our training sessions to match Norwood Oval, and we know we can play our best footy anywhere, anytime.
"Very much excitement. It's been five years, seven seasons of really hard work from a lot of people, and this season in particular, we get to celebrate making our first finals series.
"It was an awesome way to start the season, beating Adelaide at home (Moorabbin), I think that built a number of different opportunities for our group, belief being one of them. On the back of the Adelaide win, we had some struggles as well, but we won six in a row, we have a lot of momentum going into finals as well."
Question marks remain over trio Paige Trudgeon (ankle), Nic Barr (foot) and Liv Vesely (calf), who were set to take part in Thursday's main training session ahead of selection later in the evening.
"We have our fingers crossed, and clearly our injury list has been spoken about quite a bit, we are well aware we have some injuries. But in saying that, the girls who have come in and been given those opportunities have absolutely stepped up and got us into this position," coach Nick Dal Santo said ahead of training.
"We'll have our main session this afternoon. The girls who have missed in the previous weeks who will prove their fitness, and the one thing I will say is they will be fit, and they will be able to play four quarters. We're not managing anybody. We're also not asking anyone to do anything they're not capable of, physically or mentally.
"[Jaimee Lambert, calf tightness] is different to some other girls who have been clearly injured, she made a decision and we made a decision that we thought was best for her, and we expect her to play this weekend."
The Saints aren't coming into the game in the best of form, having lost to the Western Bulldogs by 45 points last weekend.
The club has thrown its support behind the women's program, designing an "All In" t-shirt, and forming a guard of honour for the players as they ran out onto the track for their last session at home before the match.
"We were disappointed with the game. There's no hiding the fact that – it's not even about (failing to) get a home final, it's about playing a good brand of football that we can relate to and be proud of, which we probably weren't on Sunday evening, we were disappointed in the way we played for two hours," Dal Santo said.
"Saying that, I thought the Dogs were very good, I don't want to take away anything from that, they beat us and beat us soundly. But there's some really big learnings in what that looked and felt like, compared to some other games in the previous seven weeks, that we'd be building and working on.
"Saying that, I don't think one performance dictates the next, so we've been really clear on what this weekend could look like if we do what we mean to do."
