NARRABRI got it right when it counted.
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The Blue Boars turned around successive four-point losses to Moree on Saturday to triumph 30-20 and secure back to back premierships.
It squared the ledger at two apiece for the season and was built on the two things that had let them down the most those last two games – defence and their start.
“I knew we had that sort of thing in us,” coach Hunter Harley said.
“It was not unlike when we played up here in round one.”
Then their defence was what won it for them.
The same in last year’s grand final and, for the Bulls, the year before.
Harley didn’t see that changing heading into Saturday.
He knew defence would be what won it.
“All defence is is time and space,” Harley said.
“Cut that down and we had the fitness and mobility around the field to capitalise.”
They’ve done a lot of work on their fitness and it gave them that undercarriage.
There was a real steel in their defence.
Not just in the way they held the Bulls off the line, which they did have to do a couple of times for successive phases, but the way they stifled their momentum.
They just suffocated the Bulls, getting off the line and stopping the offloads from the Bulls forwards.
Without that roll-on through the forwards, the Bulls weren’t able to puncture the line as effectively as they had been through the season.
The Narrabri forwards really stood up in defence and, importantly, went low on the Bulls’ big runners.
“We had blokes low and someone around wrapping the ball carrier up,” Harley said.
In some cases more. Two or three times at least they would have held Moree up in a maul situation.
The other big test was going to be how they started.
The last two games they’ve let the Bulls get away to a 20-plus point lead.
Harley was prepared to have to weather an early storm but it was themselves who were the storm.
Skipper Matt Schwager scored the opening points just a few minutes in, spotting a bit of a space beside the ruck and dummying and ducking over for the first of his two tries.
Michael Cain added the extras, and a penalty a couple of minutes later to give the Blue Boars a 10-nil lead after 10 minutes.
The momentum swung towards the home side midway through the half and they steadily chipped away through the boot of Ben Carrigan to make it 10-9 at half-time.
He kicked the last right on half-time and after the Blue Boars had repelled them for numerous phases.
Cain and Carrigan traded penalties early in the second half to keep the difference at a point heading into the final 25 minutes.
That was when the Blue Boars really put their foot down.
After having a try called back for a forward pass, Matt McDonnell extended their lead to eight with just over 20 to go.
He was ankle-tapped but managed to reach out.
They should have scored earlier off an identical play to the one they had called back, and there was a sense of inevitability about it with the Blue Boars working the Bulls’ defence overtime.
Carrigan’s fifth penalty closed the gap to five with 12 to go but Cain answered a couple of minutes later with his third, before Schwager sealed it for them with a copybook of his first try.
Harley wasn’t really ever that comfortable but thought they had the momentum for a lot of the game.
He had made a couple of changes to the side he’d named, with Michael Cain starting at fullback and Kenny Anderson at five-eighth.