Even after knocking over Penola in both two and one day clashes this summer, East Gambier has christened itself as the underdogs in this weekend’s Hoggies Wines Barber Shield Grand Final.

Unlike the Eagles, who flew into the decider with a complete performance, the Bulldogs carry some scars following breathtaking conclusion to their semi-final with West Gambier.

Chasing 76 for victory, East looked set for the victory lap at 4/64, but suddenly found itself skating on thin ice after losing 5/6 before Liam Turley and Nathan Gore saved the day.

After escaping the near-death experience, Bulldogs’ captain Alex Hentschke is simply relieved to lead his team into battle this weekend and has conceded the favourties tag to minor-premier Penola.

“We really need to stop doing that (close semi-final finishes) to ourselves because I do not think I can handle another one,” he said.

“Especially after not being able to play last year and getting ourselves in a really good spot this year, only to nearly throw it away after West fought really hard.

“So I was really relieved when the ball got hit to fine leg for the winning runs which was quite overwhelming.

“Penola has been the benchmark over the last six years with North, so we will go in with nothing to lose because its all on them to beat us.

“But we match well against them and I like the challenge of playing them.”

East’s trump card is previous success having restricted Penola to small totals before chasing them down in both matchups this summer.

The secret to the club’s success has been with the ball as no team took more wickets than the Bulldogs’ 107 through the home and away portion of the summer.

Leading the assault is the new-ball pair of Hentschke and Liam Turley with a combined total of 48 wickets, while tweakers Ben Hentschke, Kev Thomson and Emerson Marks can all spin teams out as West has discovered recently.

Meanwhile runs have been slightly harder to find with only Dion Stratford averaging more than 20.

“Our bowling has been a strong piece of our puzzle all season,” the East captain said.

“We have been bowling teams out and keeping them to low scores.

“It has been handy bowling with Liam over the last couple of years and building a nice relationship and understanding.

“Our spinners have been doing the same thing, they work really well together which has been a big progression this year.

“Kev has made big impacts when he has played, while Ben has had his best season yet and for a leg-spinner to be economical around here is impressive.

“Our batting was a bit hit and miss, but we have had a settled XI since Christmas and the top five has been looking good in the last five weeks, so we are moving forwards hopefully.”

The Bulldogs’ only glimpse of the big dance in the last decade was an unsuccessful one in 2020 against North Sportsman’s when a flying Kieran Ashby ended the red and black’s hopes 22 runs short of glory.

Six players from that defeat will front up for the dogs again this year and all of them will be stinging just as much from last year’s semi-final where the Eagles won by 11 runs.

“There has been a little bit of talk about how that felt to come so close in recent years as a reminder, but the main thing for us is to just focus on this week and embrace the atmosphere,” Hentschke said.

“If we do it win, it will be huge for everyone in the team including those who were around since the last one and the younger ones.”