With first place on the line, the EAFL’s top two teams meet for the third and final time in the regular season at Zayed Sports City on Friday.
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The Barracudas currently hold the top spot with a 4-1 record, while a tie is all that separate the Stallions at 3-1-1.
Another game remains with the season finale over a week away, but both teams know what’s at stake in this match-up.
“That’s something we’re definitely focused on,” Stallions coach Anthony Daniels said. “Everyone wants to be known as No1 and we’re not going to settle for second place.”
Barracudas coach Kyle Jordan said: “Our team is approaching the game like that, like the Stallions are coming in to take first place away from us, so we’re going to play like we have our backs against the wall and come out ready to go hard.”
Though the Barracudas hold the edge in the standings, the Stallions have looked like the better team as of late, boasting both the league’s top offence with 111 points scored and the league’s stingiest defence with 34 points allowed.
They’re currently on a three-game winning streak, which started with a 12-0 shutout win over the Barracudas before the winter break in Week 4.
“They’re a fast defence, they get to the ball and they’re aggressive,” Barracudas coach Jordan said.
“When you face that sort of defence, all it takes is one player to blow an assignment or to miss a block and the whole play falls apart.”
Against the Stallions’ offence, the Barracudas will have to be on guard for throw downfield. The Stallions have two of the tallest wide receivers in the league, including big-play threat Askia Horne-Pierre.
Since Chris Wentzel has taken over at quarterback, he and Horne-Pierre have terrorised opposing
defences with long touchdowns.
“We can’t give that big play away,” said Jordan. “I can’t ask my defensive backs to grow four more inches, but we can focus on our technique and play the ball better than we have been.”
Foxes bank on return of Hakim from injury to boost their offence
The Al Ain Desert Foxes, still in search of their first win of the season, will get their playmaker back against the Abu Dhabi Wildcats at Zayed Sports City on Friday.
The versatile Ghazi Abdul Hakim was absent in the second half of Al Ain’s loss to the Dubai Stallions last week after suffering a shoulder injury, but the running back and receiver dynamo was a force in the Desert Foxes’ new offensive scheme while he was on the field.
Though Al Ain coach Darrell Magee expects his “all-purpose guy” to play come Friday, Abdul Hakim will be monitored to make sure he doesn’t further injure himself and miss more time.
“Building things around him, he’s kind of become the heart and soul on offence,” said Magee.
The Desert Foxes’ new offence resulted in their best half of the season against the Stallions and Magee feels it will only get ironed out with every snap of game-action.
Abu Dhabi coach Charles Gillespie hasn’t yet faced Al Ain’s new scheme, but has enough familiarity against the system to know what to expect.
“It’s a basic wing-T offence. Its primary objective is misdirection, quick-hitters and counters,” said Gillespie. “I’m very familiar with it having seen it a lot in high school ball. We’ve made some adjustments to try to counter that and we’ll see how well it works out.”
On the other side of the ball, Gillespie wants his offence to keep attacking on the ground, despite finding success on deep throws to wide receiver Corey Williams in the loss to the Dubai Barracudas last week.
Gillespie calls Williams “hands down the best wide receiver in the league” and wants to get him involved, but also continue to control the time of possession.
Al Ain are preparing for a heavy dose of the running game, but will look to be the aggressors.
Magee added: “We want to concentrate on stopping their run to where we can get them in third-and-long and have to put the ball in the air and we can kind of pin back our ears and get at them.”
