Renegades ready for finals charge

The Melbourne Renegades insist they’re not simply there to make up the numbers are they head into their first Rebel WBBL finals campaign.

The Renegades sealed their place in the top four with a victory over the Hobart Hurricanes on Saturday but stumbled against league leaders Sydney Sixers one day later in Geelong, suffering a 29-run defeat.

They’ll meet the two-time WBBL champions again this Saturday in the semi-finals at Sydney’s Drummoyne Oval, and knocking the star-studded Sixers out of the competition will be no easy feat for the team in red.

The Renegades edged out the Perth Scorchers and Adelaide Strikers to become the first Melbourne club to make the WBBL play-offs, finishing three points behind third-ranked Brisbane Heat on the table with seven wins from 14 matches.

Captain Amy Satterthwaite said her team wouldn’t get carried away with simply qualifying with finals.

“We’re not satisfied with (that),” Satterthwaite said on Sunday. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.

“I think the brilliant thing about finals, whenever you get to them, is it’s always a one-off, and the season isn’t as relevant.

“Whoever turns up on the day is going to win the game and move forward. That’s the exciting thing, it’s back to zero.”

The Renegades will draw confidence from the display their bowlers, led by New Zealand quick Lea Tahuhu, put on during the power play against the Sixers on Sunday, when they restricted their opponents to 1-18 from the first six overs.

Tahuhu finished with figures of 0-7 from her four overs, an incredible performance when you consider the Sixers’ top three is composed of Australian stars Alyssa Healy, Ellyse Perry and Ashleigh Gardner.

They’ll also have been paying careful attention to the Sixers’ final home-and-away match against the Melbourne Stars at the MCG on Monday, when leg-spinners Alana King and Kristen Beams produced a stunning display to bowl their rivals out for 92.

““I thought we were brilliant in the first half of (their innings). Probably after the start we had with the ball we let them get away a little bit,” Satterthwaite said.

“The new-ball bowlers up front were outstanding and to hold the trio of batters of that caliber to the score we did is something you don’t see very often and was pretty exceptional really.

“But there are some areas we need to keep tinkering with and need to get right.

“We know it’s not out of our reach, we’ve got a couple of days to refresh and look back at this game and look at what we need to keep tweaking.”

The Renegades will travel to Sydney on Thursday to prepare for Saturday’s semi-final, which will kick off at 1.50pm AEDT following the morning semi-final between the Sydney Thunder and Brisbane Heat (10.40am AEDT).