Easts want to build for finals
Easts will celebrate the representative career of Andrew Walker and attempt to build some momentum heading into the finals when they face Norths at Bottomley Park in round 18 of Trinity Premier Rugby (kickoff 3pm).
There will be a post-match tribute to the dual international who has announced his retirement from representative football and will now concentrate solely on club football with Easts.
Walker will provide a boost to the line-up after a judiciary ruled no further penalty was warranted for his red-card in last weekend's 30-13 loss to GPS.
Before the Tigers can celebrate his illustrious career, they must first concentrate on overcoming their recent on-field disappointments of consecutive defeats to GPS and the Gold Coast.
With one round remaining before Easts face Brothers in the major semi-final they will need to hit form and provide a platform to overcome their previous two losses to the Brethren.
Easts coach Pat Richards admits his side may have been caught with their minds on their semi-final clash with Brothers.
"The players say they are thinking about the game at hand, but I think it's human nature to look at [the Brothers game] as the one you have to win," Richards said.
"We're disappointed we lost against GPS because it was two weeks in a row we lost and we set ourselves the goal of winning every game, so that was disappointing. But if you look at the tapes of the game and the effort involved our blokes played pretty well. We played 60 minutes with 14 players and with 10 minutes to go it was 13-all."
A loss against Norths won't change Easts' position on the ladder and therefore Richards will be looking for a consistent and dominant display on the paddock.
"It's important we do win. We're still trying to get our best team on the field and just get our combinations together so that we can finish the season proper on a good note and get a little bit of a confidence boost.
"Norths will be hard as they'll be disappointed about missing out on the top four after playing well all season and they have some good players there who want to leave on a good note and leave a lasting impression for next year."
Norths looked certain to reach the finals this season after commencing their year with seven wins, but have only managed three wins since and now sit in sixth position.
Any chance of sneaking into the top four was ruined last week after a 31-27 loss to Brothers, but a win over the Tigers could elevate them to fifth position.
The Eagles' mid-season collapse was due to a lack of depth according to coach Chris Roche, a problem he believes should be rectified next season.
"When injuries and rep commitments hit we just weren't able to cover it. We are pleased with the rep commitments and won't use that as an excuse as we want our players to get recognised if they're good enough, but it's simply the case to win a premiership we believe you have to have about 45 players [capable of playing premier grade].
"If you look at our forward pack, seven out of eight boys are 21 or under which augurs well for the future.
"We'll be recruiting heavily again in the off-season and the beauty of it is when we first got started we needed to recruit a whole club, just about, whereas now we're only recruiting half a dozen blokes."
Roche says his side will go into the match with a relaxed attitude, as for the first time this season the Eagles will take the field with no pressure or expectation.
"I just want them to continue the style we are developing which is an expansive type of game," he said.
"If we can beat Easts we have beaten every team in the competition except Brothers and some teams twice, which has been a pretty good effort."
The Eagles have impressed with their never say die attitude during most games, but the loss of stars Blair Connor and Leroy Houston will severely dint their chances of overturning a 29-7 defeat last time the two sides played.
