Souths skipper Kohan Herbert admits his side is entering uncharted waters this weekend when the Magpies return to the Hospital Cup finals.

But after finishing fourth, Herbert and his side are just three wins away from a premiership and aren’t spooked by the experience of the sides joining them in the playoffs. 

“Our Premier Grade side hasn’t played in the finals for six years now so it’s a bit of a different feel around the place at the moment,” Herbert told Rugby News.

“This time last year, we were done, whereas now, we’ve got it all to play for. There’s a lot of excitement around the place, that’s for sure.”

Under coach Garrick Morgan, Souths have featured at the top end of the Hospital Cup ladder for most of the regular season despite rarely getting their best XV on the park together at the same time. 

The Magpies fell short against Wests on Sunday and will now play an elimination final against UQ this weekend with most of their troops back on deck. 

“Our two previous games against Sunnybank and Bond were really good, especially the Bond game. That’s the first time we’ve beaten a side like that, in that sort of fashion, in a long time. 

“We were a little disappointed with our performance against Wests. We had a decent first half and we were in the game, but we had a few moments of silliness and that helped them get ahead. 

“We gave away a string of penalties and that led to their three tries and although we had a bit of a fightback at the end, it all came too late.”

Morgan has welcomed back key players each week over the past month and will have close to his full contingent on deck for Sunday’s showdown against the Red Heavies. 

Herbert said if his side can replicate the physicality they played with against Wests and add a little polish, he was confident they could give the Students a run for their money. 

“We knew what was on the line on Sunday and I think we certainly matched their physicality and probably took them by surprise a little, because Wests have a very big pack. 

“It was a good tune up for UQ and we had a few boys back playing their first game with us for a while so it was good to get a game like that out of our system before the finals.

“We’ve just got to take it week by week. For some of us, we’re playing in our first finals series ever but at the end of the day, it’s just footy and we’ve just got to win one game at a time. 

“UQ have had our number twice this year and they’ve got a lot of finals experience. We can’t worry about that though, we’ve got to go out there and play our game and if we do that, I think we’re every chance.”

While Herbert said the playing group was doing it’s best to ignore the outside noise from plenty of excited Souths’ supporters, he admitted how special it would be to be part of a side that brought success back to Chipsy Wood Oval. 

“Last time Souths won the competition was in 2015 and they actually came from fourth place to do it,” the skipper said. 

“For this club to be back on top, it would be awesome to be involved in and I think it would be great reward for all the hard work people have been putting in at the club on and off the field over the last few years.”

Souths and UQ meet at Sunnybank at 3:05pm on Sunday.