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Sunraysia FCWeekly Times | THE recent fortunes of the Sunraysia and Wimmera leagues’ representative sides stand at different ends of the spectrum.

Sunraysia is chasing its first senior interleague success since 2012 while the Wimmera will be going for its third successive interleague win after defeating the Bellarine and North Central leagues the past two years.

The two leagues will meet this Saturday at Mildura’s Sarah Oval in the Worksafe AFL Victoria Community Championships.

The Wimmera league will be led by a playing coach, Minyip-Murtoa captain John Delahunty, who takes the reins for the first time after representing the ‘Big W’ as a player in 2014.

He missed last year’s game due to a shoulder injury, he said.

Delahunty said the experience of the coaches and players within the Wimmera squad had allowed him to “put his own spin on things” with ease.

There are also several debutants this year, including Delahunty’s Burras teammates Kade Petering and Jae McGrath.

“[As coach] I’ve tried to focus on the team bonding side of things,” Delahunty said.

“We’ve had four training sessions, but we had a social session down at the pub just to get to know one another.”

Sunraysia will be without Red Cliffs’ Beau Riordan, who was best-on-ground in last year’s premiership, due to a hamstring injury but Sunraysia coach Ash Connick insisted the team was in better shape than previous years.

“If we can get everyone contributing, we’ll just try our best on the day,” Connick said.

“A majority of the group know each other pretty well; we played together last year so hopefully we’re as prepared as we can be.”

At least three players from each club were named in the 48-man initial squad, with Imperials’ Brad Hards named captain.

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