IT was a bit of deja vu at Dangar Park on Saturday as Narrabri ground their way to a six-point win in their grand final rematch with Pirates.
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There was only that in it back on that glorious September day for the Blue Boars when they won 25-19.
As it was then, Saturday was an arm wrestle, with the Blue Boars getting up 21-15.
“It wasn’t the prettiest but there were a lot of positives,” Blue Boars coach Hunter Harley said. “We showed a lot of character, particularly in the second half.”
He thought they were a bit flat in the first half .
“We made a hell of a lot of ground with our starter players but the urgency was not there,” he said.
As a result, Pirates forced quite a few turnovers.
Urgency was, not surprisingly, the key word at half-time.
The message got through, with their support of the ball carrier, to start, a lot better in the second half.
It was a game that could have gone either way and, in the end, Harley thought it came down to a bit more potency.
“I thought we had a bit more firepower,” he said.
“We had a few more players able to make breaks out of limited opportunities.”
He added that it was probably a game that two years ago they would have lost, and noted their blend of old and new.
That was nowhere more apparent than in the backrow, with 39-year old – and opening tryscorer from a 40m intercept – Matt Radford combining with Central North Colts Jack Maunder and Sam Knight, and Matt McDonnell.
Harley regularly rotated them and thought they were all good with McDonnell again a standout, despite having 10 minutes in the bin.
Both sides were reduced to 14 for a period , the Blue Boars twice.
Pirates coach Andrew Verrell couldn’t put his finger on anything specific that was the difference.
He didn’t feel the Blue Boars dominated them in the forwards, or the backs, but was lamenting his side’s mistakes.
“We many too many errors,” he said.
And fundamental mistakes.
It was one of several frustrating elements to a game that had a few momentum shifts.
One of the big ones, Verrell felt, was right on half-time.
They were awarded a penalty about 25m out and right in front but it was reversed after a scuffle off the ball.
Not only did they go into the break two behind instead of one ahead, but he had “15 blokes fuming” that he had to calm down.
“Then what happened after half-time? We stuffed the kick-off and they scored a try,” he said.
What then made things tougher was they “virtually had no ball in the second half”.
Conrad Starr was solid for them at eight and got the three points ahead of fullback Jake Hartmann, who was the players’ player, and Jake Douglas.
