Gunnedah's disappointment was palpable as the final whistle blew in Saturday's minor semi-final, the Red Devils left to wonder what could have been after setting themselves up for a memorable victory only to fall short 27-20.
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Reminisce of their elimination final against Narrabri two years ago the Red Devils came out firing, running in three tries in the opening 20 minutes to lead Pirates 15-nil. But unlike then they were unable to go on with it on Saturday, the premiers scoring twice in the last 10 minutes to run them down.
The manor of the tries were insult to injury for the Red Devils with both the result of a dominant scrum or rolling maul - all five of Pirates tries were in fact.
One of the Red Devils' strengths all season, coach Dan Martin felt losing their edge, in the set piece particularly, was a crucial factor in the result.
"We lost our tempo in our set piece and losing that set piece in the scrum really came against us there," he said.
Early on it was business as usual but as the game wore on they struggled even on their own feed at times, and in that final 10 minutes seemed almost powerless to stop Pirates.
The damage had really been done earlier in the game, the Red Devils' tendency to stop communicating for periods of the game hurting them.
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"Once we stop communicating we fall in a heap and we've done that every week since basically the last time we played Pirates," Martin said.
"There was sections of every game we've played and that's a mental thing from the boys that if our communication drops off everything else falls away as well."
"We just went quiet for a good 15-20 minute period there and let them back into the game."
They were getting isolated and turned over at the breakdown, and were a bit passive in defence which enabled Pirates to build momentum.
"Our boys weren't getting off the line for a little bit in defence which allowed them to come forward," Martin said.
"They've got a very simple structured game and we allowed them to get across the gain line."
He also noted that Pirates were very good at capitalising on their errors and felt their finals experience was telling.
"It's a huge thing when you've got a number of seasoned finalists in your squad that can just know where to go and what to do," he said.
He was though ultimately proud of what his side achieved this season, a semi-finals appearance looking a long way off when they lost their opening two games to Narrabri and Inverell.
