For a time at Dangar Park on Saturday it looked like Narrabri's Central North premiership reign might be over.
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Needing to beat Pirates to have any chance of sneaking into the finals, after leading for a fair bit of the game, albeit not by much, the Blue Boars looked to have a mountain to climb trailing 38-23 late into the game.
But, one of the traits coach Jake Packer often remarked about last season was their ability to play to the 80th minute. It came to the fore again on Saturday, with winger Joe Baker scooting in outwide in the final play of the game to snatch the win 40-38 and keep their season alive.
Leapfrogging Quirindi into fourth, they're still not home yet though.
They have to beat Gunnedah in the final round this coming Saturday, or if they can't, at least pick up a bonus point, preferably two, and hope Pirates can do the job over Walcha.
But all of those permutations would have been irrelevant had they not got the result on Saturday.
Standing with women's captain Peta Cox when Pirates scored to go ahead 38-23, Blue Boars president Mick Coffey recalled making the comment to her that "a good team will come back" and "a team that is mentally weak will throw the towel in and they'll let 40 points be put on them".
"And I saw [five-eighth] Morgan Jones. He got up off the ground after that try was scored and his body language told me that we're coming back," he said.
"He walked over and he spoke to some of the boys, I couldn't hear what he said, but I could see his mouth moving. I said to Peta 'we're on here, they're not gonna let this happen, they're gonna come back and push hard here and if we're smart we'll win'".
"And they did, and it's really pleasing to see."
By their own admission at times throughout the season "really poor" by their standards, he thought Saturday was one of their best performances.
And it needed to be. They were up against "a really strong" Pirates side that "played really well through large passages of the game".
"To state the obvious it was a must win game for us," Coffey said.
"So between that and Jake's (coach Jake Packer) 100th game, being at home and being Pirates - there's a lot of history there with Pirates and the Blue Boars having pretty big tussles... we were obviously quite focused."
The tension of the first grade game was a far cry for him from the earlier women's clash, which his Blue Boars side won 52-nil to set up a showdown with the Red Devils for the minor premiership.
"That was a pretty special game for us," Coffey said.
"We mixed things up a little bit and tried a couple of different things at training, which to be honest, I'm the coach so you've got to wear it, didn't work."
So they reverted back to a "simple game plan of some basic structure but allowing flexibility for people to play what was in front of them".
"The key thing I said to the girls was attitude and effort, we've just got to keep working as hard as we can and if we're working hard and moving fast opportunities will come and it'll keep the opposition at bay and yeah they played really, really well," he said.
"There's a couple of girls there who I reckon had their best game of rugby ever in their lives."
In the other first grade games Moree, who depending on the final round results could potentially finish on top, thumping Quirindi 65-14, while Walcha thrashed Inverell 73-10.
