The match will pit the top two teams against each other and Fleming is confident his side will be best prepared to cope with the increased intensity.

“The best two teams have made the final, two teams with the most character have made the final,” Fleming said. “We beat them a couple of weeks back, we’ll try take that confidence into the grand final. Finals cricket is a lot different, there’s a lot more pressure. It’s normally about who handles the pressure the best.

“We’ve got a lot of experience, nine or ten players who have won a premiership. In my time we’ve never lost to Helensburgh in a semi-final or final, we beat them in a two-day final in 2011. It’s something you’re not going to know until you get there, but we’ll back ourselves. Just like we’ve backed ourselves all year.”

The two teams faced off in a one-day match a month ago, with Balgownie securing the victory.

Graeme Batty led the Magpies to 185 with an impressive 77 before Fleming took four wickets with the ball to restrict the Tigers to 9-169 off 50 overs. Helensburgh captain Mitch McCrae (65) was the bedrock of the Tigers innings, but he was forced to watch on as batsmen regularly fell at the other end of the wicket. 

The match was indicative of the Tigers season, with McCrae scoring 727 runs while receiving little support from his teammates. 

Fleming, hasn’t forgotten that match and he wasn’t afraid to pile the pressure on his opposing captain.

“A lot of their batting revolves around Mitch McCrae.

“We’ve just got to bowl to our plans towards him, we’re confident if we can get him out they can fall very cheaply. He’s scored 700 runs this year, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t score any runs in the finals.

“There’s massive pressure on him to perform. Imagine going through the whole year and scoring that many runs and then not in the semi-final or final. He’ll be under a lot of pressure.”

McCrae was removed for just 11 in last week’s semi-final victory over Keira and the Tigers made tough work of a manageable target of 114 runs. The opener concedes his team has to bat better if they are to win the club’s first two-day premiership. 

“The last game we played Bally, we lost but it was reasonably close,” McCrae said. “But we certainly took a lot of confidence out of that. We have to bat better this week. They have a strong batting lineup, but we’re confident our bowlers can get the job done, it’s just making sure we bat in partnerships.

“We need to make sure that if we do lose a wicket or a couple wickets early we’re building our partnerships and getting back in the game. If we lose three or four through the middle, it will be hard to come back from that.”

Helensburgh’s spin-bowling trio of Chris Macnamara, Steve Blissenden and Neil Ryan have provided McCrae with ample support this season and he is confident they can help lead the team to victory.

“The  way we’ve bowled after Christmas has been pretty good. We’ve built pressure from both ends and that’s what we have to do against the best batsmen, bowl consistently good balls to them.”