They've had to wait three years but Moree will get the chance to defend their Central North second grade title after toughing out an 8-5 win over Pirates in their major semi-final on Saturday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
In what was a bit of a war of attrition in the wet, Ben Legg's second half penalty was the difference with both sides scoring a try apiece in the first half.
The win means the 2019 champions are the first team through to the decider with Pirates to fight it out with Barraba/Gwydir this Saturday for the remaining spot.
After defending their three point lead for the last 25 minutes, Bulls co-coach Calum Drysdale said there was some relief when the final whistle blew but at the same time he said he "had every faith in the boys we'd do it".
"They've played well all year," he said.
"They turned in one bad performance and that was Pirates at Pirates. Other than that we're happy."
A true finals test, he remarked that the players were "definitely going to be sore after that".
Not a day when you wanted to be playing in your half, the instruction was to just keep the ball down Pirates' end.
"Our 10 (James Bailey) and our 15 (Legg) really kicked well today, just kicked them back, turned them around, chased well.
"That's all we needed to do, and that's what we did," Drysdale said.
He said it was a real team effort, but did single out inside centre Jake Cutcliffe.
"[He] Tackled all day. They threw big fellas at him all day, and he just chopped them down," he said.
The backrow were also "immense".
Pirates co-coach Joe Stolker lamented that they didn't take opportunities when they arose a few times.
There were a few "coach killers"; instances where they went for the line rather than taking the points and ended up coming away with nothing.
"We did make some pretty silly decisions in the heat of the moment," he said.
The other thing that hurt them was that they weren't getting the same platform to attack from from the scrum they have in other games, due to it, they felt, continuously being collapsed.
Their scrum has been quite dominant.
There was also "a lot of errors" but that was to be expected with the wet and slippery conditions.
"At the end of the day Moree's defence was strong," Stolker said.
"We had them pinned down on our line a few times but couldn't break their defensive line."
On paper they should be too strong for Barraba/Gwydir - they had five more wins and finished 25 points ahead of them - but the Ram-Rats are, he said, the side that have probably worried them the most.
Coached by former long-time Pirates mentor Garry Walsh, they beat them in the first round before Pirates just snuck home by seven points in their most recent encounter.
MOREE 8 (T. Houston try, B Legg pen) d PIRATES 5 (A. O'Connor try)
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark northerndailyleader.com.au
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Google News
