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The Nelson Bay Marlins women will face Newcastle City in the GE Women’s grand-final on Saturday.
It is the third year the Bay women and Newcastle will have come face-to-face in the grand-final.
Last year the Marlins won the premiership, a feat they are looking to do for a second consecutive year.
The women’s grand-final, being played at No. 1 Sportsground in Newcastle from 4pm, will be live streamed.
In premier division, the Nelson Bay Marlins men will face Cardiff in the preliminary final.
The final will be played at No. 1 Sportsground in Newcastle from 1.30pm.
The game will also be live streamed.
Earlier, August 21:
It was a big weekend for the Nelson Bay Marlins with the Black Diamond Cup side progressing through to the preliminary finals and the women’s team through to its third consecutive grand-final.
The Marlins hosted four finals games at Dick Burwell Oval in Nelson Bay on Saturday.
The Bay’s premier men’s side kicked four goals to none in the first quarter against Newcastle City and somehow hung on to defeat the fast-finishing Blues by a solitary point.
The final result in a low-scoring, epic semi-final were Nelson Bay 6.12 (48) to Newcastle City 5.17 (47).
The Marlins came out firing and courtesy of Billy Barton and Jeremy Eddy, had two goals in the board within the first three minutes.
Two more goals had them leading by 27 points at the first change, which proved pivotal as they only kicked two more goals for the game.
Kicking with the aid of the wind in the second quarter Newcastle City squandered opportunities in front of goal through a mixture of wayward kicking for goal and determined Nelson Bay defence.
Two goals from nine scoring shots was the end result, whilst the Marlins were able to kick an important goal from limited attacking foray’s. At half time the Bay still lead by 16 points.
The Marlins were looking to build on their lead in the third quarter.
An early goal by Luke Price stretched the margin to 23 points.
Despite the wind advantage that was to be their only goal for the term which was countered by a goal to Newcastle City veteran, Luke Rawnsley.
With the margin at 18 points, the scene was set for an exciting final quarter with the Blues kicking to the scoring end.
As expected it was a tight encounter and it took eight minutes before Liam Dwyer kicked a miraculous goal from a pack to reduce the margin to 11 points and when Courtney Knight goalled from a free kick four minutes later the difference was just four points.
Newcastle City continued to attack for the remainder of the game with Nelson Bay struggling to get the ball past half way.
As time ticked by Newcastle City had three set shots for goal, which narrowly missed in the windy conditions.
City thought they had the winning goal when Knight snapped truly, only to be recalled due to an infringement in the marking contest.
In the end the Marlins prevailed by a single point to progress through to their second consecutive preliminary final.
They will play Cardiff at Newcastle No 1 Sportsground at 1.30pm pn Saturday, August 26.
In atrocious conditions under lights at Dick Burwell Oval on Saturday evening, hosts Nelson Bay qualified for their third successive GE Women’s grand-final after a superb defensive performance against Gosford.
Final scores were Nelson Bay 9.7 (61) to Gosford 0.5 (5).
With a howling south-westerly and sheets of rain scudding across Dick Burwell Oval, Nelson Bay's reknowned defence kept Gosford goal-less despite the valiant efforts of Tigers gun follower Alison Parkin.
With Jemma Astley off injured in the second half and Lisa Steane played with an injureg leg, Sophie Balcombe rose to the occasion with a simply outstanding performance in the at-times awful conditions.
Balcombe's tackling and in-and-under ball-winning skills were perfectly suited to the conditions as she combined with ruck Pippa Smyth and Kaitlyn Douglass to continually drive the ball into the Marlins forward 50 metre arc.
Emily Nichols, a brave Steane and the rapidly improving Hayley West also played well for Nelson Bay.
Nichols kicked three goals and was well-supported by Eliza Smyth with two majors.
Next week's grand-final sees reigning premiers Nelson Bay attempting to do what no other team has gone close to doing this season; defeating the high-flying Newcastle City.
First bounce at Newcastle No.1 Sportsground will be 4.30pm.