Albion Park versus Wollongong Olympic on paper is a clash of heavyweights but both sides will be desperate for a win after a few stuttering weeks.
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Defending grand final champions Olympic suffered a humbling 7-1 defeat at the hands of Bulli last round. To make matters worse, it was their third league loss in a row meaning they have dropped to fourth - 14 points behind the league leaders and their opponents on Sunday.
But with an array of experience, plenty predict that Olympic will still cause damage in finals.
Despite a flying start that still sees them six points clear with seven games remaining, Albion Park have been halted in recent weeks despite an impressive 6-0 win against Corrimal during this time.
First, it was their first loss of the season against South Coast, before being held to a 4-4 draw against finals hopefuls Port Kembla in round 15.
The two played out a draw in the first half of the season and APWE assistant coach Anthony Guido said it promised to be another cracker.
"A lot of people know each other between clubs and it's definitely a game that I believe both teams are looking forward to," he said.
"I think there's about six or seven players here that at some stage have played for Olympic. But for us getting the three points most important. We had a bit of a slip up last week so it's important that we just get back on track.
Guido added that there were positives to take out of their 4-4 draw against Port Kembla last week that they can take into the Olympic match.
"We slipped up against Port Kembla, but the other way you can look at is is that we were trailing 4-2 with not too long to go and we fought back and got a draw. The character was amazing," he added.
For Olympic coach Matt Bailey, he said his side were looking to make amends following the disappointing result against Bulli.
"It was certainly a disappointing performance and result for us on the weekend. It can probably be put as unacceptable and nothing else," he said.
"But despite that fact it does happen at times to teams. You see in the NRL and the A-League sometimes results blow out for teams and you just have to review and analyse and learn from what happened.
"On Tuesday we had a good conversation before training on what we thought was the catalyst for that result as a group. So I'm confident now that we've had a little bit of a check on the back of that and we can move forward with the rest of the season."
Bailey added that the team were gunning for a match against the top team.
"One thing about our team is we don't struggle to find motivation for games against the top teams. It just seems to come really naturally," he said.
The race for the finals heats up even more on Saturday as Bulli will look to kick-on from their massive win against Olympic with a win against SCU.
In other games, Coniston will travel to face Tarrawanna, Bellambi take on Cringila and the Rangers make the trip to Helensburgh.
On Sunday is the APWE v Olympic clash as well as Port Kembla taking on Wollongong United in a must-win clash for both in the finals race.
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Jordan Warren
Illawarra Mercury sports journalist. Feel free to get in touch jordan.warren@austcommunitymedia.com.au.
Illawarra Mercury sports journalist. Feel free to get in touch jordan.warren@austcommunitymedia.com.au.
