The Fusion Heat solidified their stance as the consensus favourites to take out the Dubbo and District Netball A Grade Premiership on Saturday, blitzing past the Fusion Fire to secure a third straight grand final appearance.
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The Heat began putting points on the board almost immediately after the game began, and despite showing urgency across all four quarters, the Fire weren't able to stop or match the intensity, with Tash Robinson's Fusion Heat outfit tallying up 68 points to their rival's 31.
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"That was one of our main focuses coming into the game, and the finals season as well, throughout the regular season we've had a bit of a reputation of starting quite slow, so our main focus was to come out and start really strong and build on that foundation for the next three quarters," Robinson said.
"I think that we did that really well today."
Despite coming into the finals series with some unexpected roster changes and combination alterations, the Heat were able to continue the momentum of another runaway season.
"Yeah, I felt really good about our combination changes, no matter where we put everyone today, they all pulled their weight and did their job."
"It is comforting, coming into the pointy end of the season, to know that we've still got the option for different combinations if things don't go our way, so that's very good."
One particular pairing stood out to Robinson amidst the winning effort, with centre Payton Harris partnering with Georgie Conway in the goal shooting position to provide a bulk of the goals.
"Our two shooters today absolutely killed it, Georgie Conway and Payton Harris," Robinson said.
"Payton's usually our centre, she's played in that centre position for most of the season, but we've thrown her in as a shooter every now and then and she really stepped up today and they were both really confident in going to the post and that's all we asked from them, so they did their job and we're just really happy."
The result books the Fusion Heat straight into the grand final, while the Narromine Hawks will move forward and face off with the Fusion Fire in a preliminary final after eliminating the Inspire Rebels 49 - 42.
The Hawks will take on the Fire on Saturday, September 11, with the winner of that match moving on to face the Heat in the grand final.
