SAINTS FEEL THE MOMENTUM

ONCE or twice, Jacob Welsh has allowed himself to picture it.

The St Mary’s captain has twice led his side out on grand final day and both times have ended in heartbreak.

But it hasn’t stopped the hard nut from visualising himself holding up the GFL premiership cup on Saturday afternoon.

“I guess it goes through your head every now and then,” he said.

“It might rush through your mind, but there’s other things to think about first. You love to think about it, but you’ve got to get the job done.”

Welsh is one of a handful of Saints to have played in each of the grand final losses in the past three years.

When St Mary’s sat a game back from the top five after a loss to Colac in Round 14, even the skipper began to doubt whether his side could make another run at glory.

“Early on in the year or mid-year, (our) confidence was a little bit shot,” he said.

“(Momentum has) definitely built, especially over the last month and a bit since the last (round) Leopold game and the first final. We had a plan and mapped it out and figured out exactly what we had to do to get here, so we knew we were always a chance.”

That run of form has been enough for the opposition to take notice, as Colac vice-captain Jonathan Simpkin did when St Mary’s smashed St Joseph’s early to take out the preliminary final on Saturday.

“They’re a powerful club, they’ve been in four grand finals in a row now so it’s pretty hard to ignore them,” Simpkin said.

Welsh has learned from those previous defeats to accept the game will turn at times, but when the moment comes, the leaders have to grab the chance to hold the cup.

“At training and after the games you can just feel that hunger and that closeness that’s started to build … losing three, you do become very close,” he said.

“Colac are going to have stages in the game where they come hard. We have to just learn to stay settled.”