Josh Frost says he's "more than proud" to lead South Armidale into the first Northern Inland Premier League grand final since 2019, and their first premier league decider in seven years.
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The Scorpions haven't played for the silverware since 2016, when they incidentally went down to the very same side they will face on Saturday - Oxley Vale Attunga.
"I'm really looking forward to it," Frost said.
He has been part of the club for eight or nine years.
Starting off in the juniors, after moving away for a few years post-school, he linked back up with them in 2019 and has been fortunate to captain them pretty well ever since.
"They're a really really easy bunch of guys to captain," he said.
"All of them are great and we all get along and all respect what each other has to say."
Playing in the Sport UNE Football League the past three seasons, the Scorpions have enjoyed a fair bit of success, winning the competition in 2020, finishing minor premiers in 2021 (the season was cut short due to COVID) and making the grand final last year.
Beaten by Armidale City Westside in that, Frost said the loss is adding a bit of extra fire for Saturday.
"I think definitely we would be very disappointed if we didn't go out there and get the job done," he said.
"So it's a little bit of motivation and there's a few guys in the club who have been with us for a long long time and they've never won a premier league first grade grand final, so I think it'll mean a lot to the older guys of the club and sort of the founders of the club if we got it done."
Thanks to their epic extra-time major semi-final win, advancing straight through to the grand final, Frost said the break has been good to get over a few of the niggles coming out of that game.
"We trained well the last two training sessions so I think we're as prepared as we can be," he said.
"Everyone knows their role and we just need to stick to it."
"We like to knock the ball around and have the ball at our feet.
"So I think if we do that, and do that well, and just take our chances we shouldn't have a problem."
But he knows it's not going to be easy against a Mushies side, who for being in this situation is like second nature.
It will be a feast of soccer action across the weekend with the local Tamworth grand finals being played at Scully Park on Saturday and then the Newcastle Jets women's side taking on the Central Coast Mariners in a pre-season clash back at Scully on Sunday.
Kicking off at 11am, entry is free to Sunday's game.
