It was touch and go at one stage that they would even make the finals, and then they were minutes away from being knocked out in the minor semi-final, but Tamworth will have the chance to make it back-to-back New England second grade premierships this Saturday.
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The Magpies earned a grand final berth with a 19-10 win over Glen Innes in Saturday's preliminary final, and will now take on minor premiers St Albert's for the silverware.
They go in as underdogs, with the students undefeated this season, but as the reigning champions after upsetting the Harbour Knights two years ago.
Magpies coach Damian Henry said they played "good finals football" on Saturday.
"The weather probably suited us in that we wanted to play them through the forwards and that allowed us to play through the forwards," he said.
"The 'old heads' led from the front for us and everyone did their job."
Liam Allan put the Magpies ahead with an early penalty, but the Elks hit back a few minutes later with a converted try to Tom Adamson.
As the forwards got to work, Michael Pearce put the Magpies back in front from a pushover, Allan then adding another penalty before a last minute penalty to Glen made it 13-10 at half-time.
Like they did against Robb the previous weekend, the Magpies then controlled much of the second half.
"We probably dominated territory, they never really got up the other end as such," Henry said.
He said they did drop "a bit of ball" and a couple of times didn't show enough patience "to finish it off when we should have" but overall thought it was "a good effort", especially in the conditions.
Allan finished with four penalties and was also instrumental with his general kicking, particularly in the second half when they had the wind.
"He kept us on the front footy there, putting it in behind them and making them run it out, run it back at us," Henry said.
"And our defence was good."
As they were in the minor semi-final, captain Jack Barker and James Bracken, who were two of the aforementioned 'old heads', were again standouts.
It has been a great effort to make the grand final after not even being a certainty to make the four going into the final round. They needed to beat Robb to get in.
TAMWORTH 19 (M. Pearce try, L Allan 4pens, con) d GLEN INNES 10 (T. Adamson try, S Evans pen, con).
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