Josh Bartlett on OVA's grand final showdown with Souths

The region's most successful soccer outfit in recent times will face one of their biggest challenges when they travel to Armidale to take on the only Premier League side to have toppled them in the past four seasons.

They will do it having beaten Moore Creek 3-0 in the preliminary final.

The win followed Goats co-coach Dean Hoy stating that OVA's 49-game unbeaten run in the Premier League was a distortion because they had been beaten outside of the competition during that period.

Read also:

Bartlett, who joined Mushies from Tamworth FC this season, said that sort of attitude was "definitely a motivator" for OVA.

"I had the same thing at FC - we weren't very well liked," he said. "But I think it just drives you to prove your point, that you're a good club."

"I definitely wanna get the job done with the boys, so we can just sort of show everyone why OVA's been there [on top] so much," he added.

It was South Armidale who snapped OVA's unbeaten run, edging them 1-0 in round three this year, before narrowly downing them two more times including 4-3 in extra time in the major semi-final.

Bartlett is anticipating a hostile reception on Saturday.

"It's gonna be a tough ask to go up there, going into their territory and have everyone against us," he said "But it can be done ... and, hopefully, we can do it."

Bartlett said Oxley Vale Attunga had shown in the past that they could win premierships "the hard way".

"Hopefully it does give us a little bit of an advantage," he said of that pedigree.