IT IS a season-defining game for the Mypolonga Tigers.
Saturday will tell them whether they are a top three or a bottom three side.
A loss by the Tigers and a win by Jervois will put a space between them on the ladder at the end of the first round.
Both clubs are only chugging along at present, with Mypolonga looking very shabby for the first half against Tailem Bend last week.
It took a rocket from coach Damien Cross to crank them up and they responded with a five-goal to zip third term and finished all over the Eagles.
Jervois held a narrow eight-point lead over Meningie with thirty minutes left on the clock and it took a special bit of magic from Trevor Rigney to get them over the line.
In football these days the buzzword is midfield, midfield, midfield. If you win the midfield, you win the game and this is where Jervois hold the edge.
Ewer, Jagodnik and Schmidt are all very smart players and you would expect the big man Jason Bayliss to dominate the centre bounces and give them first look at the footy.
Brett Davids is a young ruckman from the Tigers and Bayliss has at least 12 years plus a ton of experience on him.
Alexander Fraunfelter is the Bluds mystery player, but South Adelaide may get first call on him this week.
Good teams win and win ugly and that is what Jervois are about.
They do enough to win in May and peak in September.
The Tigers have a bit of variety going forward with Joe Pedler at centre-half-forward, Brad Martin at full-forward, Brendan Corrie alongside of him and Caine Lynn running forward of the play.
Lynn has set the Tigers alight in his only two games this season but they have been against the lower teams.
This week against Jervois he will not get the freedom to run loose and score so easily.
When it gets down to the crunch Jervois know how to win tight games.
If rain comes into play the experience, football smarts and physical strength of Russell Jarvis, James Jagodnik, Jeremy Rigney and Craig Fidge will come into play and they will just bustle the younger Tigers off the footy.
Jervois 11 to 20 points.
Ramblers v Tailem Bend
It will take Ramblers half a game to settle in after coming off the bye.
They have to slap themselves on the back, they have to tell one another how handsome they are and they have to compare their blond tips.
That is fair enough as they are a very handsome side according to their mothers.
So far so good for Ramblers but they need to get the half-man half-ox Ryan Viney back into some shape.
Viney is out of form and his pre-season looks to have been done at McCues bakery, but Mark Marchetti is filling the void.
Marchetti has turned back the clock with some very good performances.
The stumbling block for Tailem Bend is the big heavy scoring forwards from Ramblers.
The Roosters have the luxury of the big man Adam Jackson in peak form, Ryan Morris is going along very nicely and what those two miss the very smart Ben Dougall mops up.
Dougall might only be a 16-year-old, but he can read the play and is a very nice finisher, with 17 goals in the first five rounds.
Tailem Bend had a crack last week when they played the better football for the first half but they could not go on with it after half-time, adding only one goal.
Tailem Bend should feel privileged stepping out onto the hallowed turf of Le Messurier.
This is where the big final will be played and it is only fair that they are allowed onto the ground in May, because come September they will not be there.
I am only trying to give you the facts.
The area where the Eagles should hold sway is in the rucking department.
Patrick Gabb is a big bloke but he is a one trick pony.
He wins every tap but he doesn’t take a mark around the ground.
He should be able to dominate the young Roosters in Ty Pfeiffer and Alex Mason.
Dylan Hogarth is a goer for the Eagles and they rolled out Noel Hartman last week in a blast from the past.
Apart from a few inches around the waist, Hartman he showed he had not lost it. Next Mathew Dent will bring back Bill Lokan and Terry Connolly.
They could chew the fat from the fifties to the seventies and if they had a disco both Bill and Terry would not have to change their pants.
If Tailem Bend gets within ten goals it will be a miracle.
Ramblers by 100 plus.
Meningie v Imperials
The Meningie Bears had a go last week but they just could not go the distance and this week they run into the form team of the competition Imperials.
The Blue Boys have taken all before them; they had a sympathetic moment against Mannum last week but no such luck for Meningie.
The Blues have a very good midfield and goal scoring forwards.
You do not have to be a rocket scientist to work it out.
Henry Hodge, Roger Puckridge, Ryan Edwards, Daniel Girdham and Ryan Eyre are all in pretty good nick at the minute and those three goal scoring forwards in Martin Bailee, Luke Harrowfield and Matthew Kowald have kicked 54 goals between them in the opening five rounds.
The world’s slowest man Bailee is averaging five goals per game and the opposition defenders have trouble shifting him off the ball because of his bulk.
The Bears took something away from last week and maybe a win is not far away.
Their North Adelaide recruit Jack Lewis has hit his straps and he will give a contest to the Blues defenders.
Robert Payne fired up last week but the big bonus was Stewart Willis.
The Meningie Bears are capable of a surprise but not against Imperials.
They have got a lot of inexperienced young kids running around such as Michael Greenwood, Andrew Cunneen and Reece Smart and if they get a sniff on their home deck who knows what might happen.
Imperials by 100 plus.
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