Saints coach Allie Barnett said her side was extremely excited heading into the game.

“We’ve been preparing for it all year,” she said.

“A lot of the girls haven’t played in grand finals before so they’re really excited.”

Saints lost just one game during the regular season on the way to finishing in first place.

During the season, Saints recorded victory in both games against the Rats.

In round five, the game finished 33-15 and when the sides met in round 12 the Saints prevailed 39-32.

Come the finals though, the Rats managed to become just the second side in 2016 to defeat the Saints, when the final scoreboard read 38-32 in its favour. 

“Ararat has made a lot of improvements during the season,” Barnett said.

“Their strength is at either end of the court.

“We’ll have to shut down their shooters. We’ve got really strong defenders who will have to be on.”

Ararat coach Grace Molloy said the team was feeling confident ahead of the game.

“We are confident we can win,” she said.

“We have proved to the teams in the league we can do it by beating every side at some point during the year.

“We have enjoyed the whole journey so far this year as a team.”

The team will rely on doing the basics well to get the win.

“We will continue to do our normal preparation,” she said.

“When we played them two weeks ago their goalies were quite accurate.

“So we have to stop that supply. When the Saints are bringing it out of defence then it is up to everyone to put that pressure on.”