Darke under Torquay protection

TORQUAY must provide better protection for Ash Medalist James Darke if it is to overcome the strength of the Geelong Amateur midfield today, according to Tiger star Sam Wormald.

The Ammos’ midfield beat up on Torquay when the teams met in July, which went a long way to helping them secure a 35-point win at Queens Park.

This time around the second semi-final will be played at Torquay’s home ground, Spring Creek Reserve, and while keeping Geelong Ama- teur’s potent forward line quiet is a huge task, stopping the source of their supply will be paramount.

“We’ll obviously be a ruckman down with [Josh] Hovey being out but with the personnel we have in there as a midfield group we should be able to match it with them,” Wormald said. “We just had a down day when we played them last.

“We probably weren’t at our best and they jumped us a bit, we had a few guys missing but they were just too good on the day.”

Having finished on top of the BFL ladder at the end of the home-and-away season, Torquay enjoyed a week off last week, which enabled several players some time to overcome injury concerns.

But Wormald said there was still plenty of hard yards done on the training track, but the break was clearly timely after a tough season.

“We had a good run around on Saturday and it was pretty sharp, so we got a bit out of it,” he said.

“There were a few niggling injuries so the boys have overcome them and now we will go in feeling pretty fresh.

“They [Geelong Amateur] have had a pretty tough game and had to come from behind to beat Barwon Heads, so hopefully it’s taken a bit of wind out of their sail.”