The Magpies left their run until late, scoring four unanswered tries in the last 25 minutes to topple Gunnedah 28-9.

It was a far from convincing performance with the Magpies producing some ordinary football at times.

Both sides were probably a bit guilty of that, Magpies co-coach Mark Daley said, especially in the first half.

“It was probably not the most attractive first half - from either side,” Daley said.

The endeavour was there but the execution was lacking, with both sides fumbling opportunities and guilty of throwing passes out of reach of their support. .

The Magpies had some good moments early with outside centre Dylan Cross slicing through the Red Devils defence on a couple of occasions.

But they couldn’t turn his breaks into anything, and instead it was the Red Devils who came up with first points via Shane Lutze’s boot about 20 minutes in.

Lutze added a second penalty right on half-time to make it 6-nil at the break, and leave the Magpies with some work to do.

“At half-time their heads were down, It looked they had lost,” Daley said.

It was their last roll of the dice. They needed to win to give themselves any hope of playing finals.

But while the attack wasn’t quite working the defence was.

“We defended for 35 minutes of that first half, or that’s what it felt like,” co-coach Tony Mills added.

“All they got is a couple of penalties.”

Throughout the game Daley didn’t feel like the Red Devils really threaten them.

Yet 10 minutes into the second half they led 9-nil.

Unlike their opposition, the Magpies seemed reluctant to take the points, preferring the quick tap option, much to the frustration of some of their supporters.

Daley admitted that was a directive from the coaches, and it eventually paid off on their fifth attempt with Jack Barker crashing over.

It proved the turning point.

Two minutes later Cross ran a great line off centre partner Joe Evans to, with the conversion, put the Magpies ahead 14-9 with 20 to go.

“You could see a definite lift in attitude after that first try,” Daley said.

Still, they couldn’t shake the Red Devils off and really had to dig deep, especially when Kieren McHugh was sin-binned with nine to go, leaving them a man down to defend a five-point lead.

“That made it a little bit harder,” Daley said.

But again their defence was resolute, and after repelling the Red Devils charge, they ran in two late tries to ensure the full complement of points. They scored the last almost a minute after the bell, with substitute winger Charles Sherwood making his first grade debut a memorable one.

Daley said Evans was fantastic for them.

He also thought Cross had the best game he’s seen from him for a while.

Backrow trio - Barker, James Bracken and Tom Anderson were again also superb.