“We don’t have the opportunity to relax or take our foot of the pedal, it’s going to be a big game for us,” said McKenna.
“We’ve got to be ready to stand our ground against them and take it right to them because I’m sure Kevin (Sheedy) will be reminding his team of their fourth quarter against Melbourne last week… they’re going to build it up and so they should.”
With the GWS Giants struggling to find early season form after going through the opening rounds without a win, Mckenna was confident his team would leave Manuka Oval with the premiership points on Saturday afternoon.
“We’ve won 8 quarters out of 16 and they have won 4 – we can see from that small sample that we have shown we struggle in the second quarter but mentally we’re heading into this weekend aiming to fix that.”
With Zac Smith telling reporters at Metricon Stadium yesterday that competition for key position spots were beginning to heat up, McKenna hinted that key forward Tom Lynch was in the mix for senior selection after kicking 6 goals (14 scoring shots) in the NEAFL 66-point win over the Redland Bombers last weekend.
“Post-match I said the Gillette was going to be sharpened this week but it certainly won’t be cutting too deep like most traditional Clubs because unfortunately we are not a traditional club,” McKenna said.
“We have a lot of boys who have played good footy, and a few that have played strong through the NEAFL that will likely be jumping straight back in.”
With both sides holding victories over each other, McKenna said the growing rivalry between the two AFL expansion teams had the potential to become one of the game’s greatest annual blockbusters.
“This rivalry is going to be spoken about over the next ten years – who’s got the better list? Which team has the better coach? Who’s got the best No. 1 draft picks?” said McKenna.
“There’s no doubt it’s going to be a good one… Canberra is their (GWS) home away from home son it’s going to be a great contest.”
