The carpenter won a Colts premiership with the club in 2014 and after an involved first grade tenure between 2015-2018 he temporarily hung up the boots to focus on his business and his family.

And while he didn't plan to dive head first into City rugby in 2020, he just couldn't help himself.

"I wasn't going to play this year and just wanted to come back and have a run around in seconds," Brockmann said.

"I played in 2018 but the business took off, kids came and I got the dad bod on."

He's glad he came back this winter for what's been a shortened Central West season and while there's plenty of interesting elements looking at this version of Orange City, he was quick to point out what makes it unique.

"It's the camaraderie," he said.

"The boys have fun, it's exciting and Viv [Paasi] makes things interesting - it's the same with Andy (Hillan).

"No two things are the same. There's a lot of repetitions in rugby but they find a way to do things a bit differently and turn up and enjoy it and laugh and carry on, it makes it a lot easier to turn up."

Rugby fans in the region know City's backs can go blow-for-blow with Emus' but can they have the same success against the league-leading pack?

Emus' pigs are widely regarded as the best in the Central West.

"Are they?," a confident Brockmann quipped.

"We're in the grand final for a reason ... we've shown that we're more than capable of dealing with them.

"They've been dominant for a long time and hats off to them - they're a great side.

"They've been together a long time so that makes it easy but they know each other really well and we're only just starting to learn each other."

Brockmann's been a staple of Viv Paasi's first-grade squad for the last few weeks after kicking the season off as a member of the bench.

He'll start at flanker for the Lions in the grand final, joining Rakai Tuheke and Tom Mencinsky as City's loose forwards.

The derby will be the third meeting of the season between the two sides and after the Lions were thumped by Emus 50-10 in round three, bounced back to narrow the losing margin to just 14 in what was an extremely competitive 31-17 loss in round seven.

City will need to narrow the gap even further if they want to contest for its first title since 2013.

Kick-off is at 4.30pm.