Minyip-Murtoa holds the top wrung on the A grade ladder and the Rats sit just below them in second place.

The Rats will be fresh from a heartbreak at the hands of the Horsham Demons in round eight, but A grade coach Taylor Mason said the side is taking the lessons from that match and will apply them to this game.

"Minyip got up against Horsham (Demons) a couple of weeks ago so it would definitely be remiss of me to say it won't be a challenge," she said.

"But I think there's a lot we can learn from the weekend just gone that we can hopefully take to next week's game and improve on those."

Some of those lessons include staying calm in the midst of the game.

"(It's) keeping a level head," Mason said.

"When the Demons got a run on us we were unable to stay calm; being able to maintain that would definitely have helped us out on the weekend. I think we'll learn from that and it will help us this weekend as well."

Minyip-Murtoa A grade coach Billie Bibby is also expecting a tough game.

"It will definitely be a challenge," she said.

"All top five or six teams are all quite even and you go into every game not knowing what the end result will be.

"I don't think there's been a game I've walked confidently into yet saying 'yep, we're going to take the points.'

"We've watched (Ararat) over the last few years and they've been getting stronger, and now they have some key players with Megan Shea returning and Taylor coming in."

The side recently lost their captain Jessie Elder to a snapped achilles in round three, right after returning from a year off for her other achilles.

"Luckily we've still got her on the sidelines to help," Bibby said.

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