THE old enemy struck again for Moree on Saturday, with Narrabri producing one of their gutsiest-ever displays to thwart the Bulls’ charge and usurp them at the top of the table.
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True to the nature of clashes between the two, the game was in the balance until the final few minutes, Blue Boars hooker Luke Findley crashing over with around four to go to put them six ahead.
Henri Knight then landed a long-range penalty in the closing seconds to get the Blue Boars home 26-17.
Blue Boars coach Hunter Harley couldn’t speak highly enough of his side’s efforts, labelling it the gutsiest win he’s ever been involved in, or seen for that matter.
They were floored by injuries.
They lost breakaway Matt McDonnell about 20-25 minutes in with suspected broken ribs.
Inside centre Mitch Kelly came off around the same time with a sprained ankle.
Then about five minutes into the second half, Michael Cain dislocated his shoulder.
“I’m the proudest I’ve ever been,” Harley said.
He said it was a great spectacle, momentum swinging from side to side.
The Bulls led 7-6 at half-time and then, after the Blue Boars had turned things around to lead 16-12, were up 17-16 with around 10 to go.
Harley couldn’t look much past their defence for where they won it.
“We said we wanted to tackle their big blokes low,” he said.
They accepted there was chance they could get an offload away but knew they had to go low if they were going to stop their momentum.
“We just had to realign quickly and rely on our fitness and that’s what we did,” Harley said.
“There were lapses in the second half when we were out on our feet and we started to go high on their big blokes.”
But they were able to get back on task.
“There were so many little efforts out there,” he said.
“The whole forward pack played well.”
He made particular mention of Jack Sharp. First game back and with not much footy under his belt, he had to play 100 minutes after coming on for McDonnell.
Harley had high praise for Jake Packer at five-eighth too and Henri Knight in the centres.
The Bulls were in some respect a victim of their recent dominance.
“We created enough opportunities,” Bulls co-coach Simon Hall said.
“Narrabri were probably just asking that extra question that other teams haven’t been asking us in recent weeks.”
It was one of the biggest questions heading in, how they would handle the pressure the Blue Boars would inevitably put on them, having not really been challenged since round three.
That pressure came at the breakdown and in defence, and resulted in “a lot of errors”.
“Narrabri, when they had field position, they walked away with points. We weren’t able to convert our field position into points,” Hall said.
“That was a big factor.”
But there wasn’t really anything in it and, as the cliche goes, it was probably the loss they needed to have.
“It was a good leveller for where we’re at,” Hall said.
“We know where the standard is at.”
Ben Colley and Matt Wannan were, as usual, strong for them. Alex Corliss was also good at inside centre.