The Armidale team won 1-0 in the McDonald's Northern Inland Premier League elimination final at the Armidale Sportsground.

The only goal of the match came via a free kick in the first half to the Scorpions.

It was the second week in a row that the teams had faced each other. When the two met last week, the Scorpions got the points 4-3 after leading 4-1 with around 20 minutes to go.

Tamworth coach Greg Bartlett was pleased with his side’s effort, but rued missed opportunities.

“We did what we said we were going to do, we shut Ben Wright down pretty well, compared to the week before, and he didn’t have a lot of influence on the game, but they just ended up being too good for us,” Bartlett said.

In a tightly fought contest, both sides had ample opportunities to score but failed to capitalise.

“We hit the crossbar and we hit the post; we had enough opportunities to win the game but we just weren’t good enough, simple as that” Bartlett said.

“They took the opportunity that was presented to them, and they had a couple of other scoring opportunities but Troy was on the ball with those,” he said, praising his side’s keeper Troy Osborne.

“He is pretty hard on himself, and blaming himself for the loss, but he made four really good saves that a lot of the keepers in the comp wouldn’t have made,” Bartlett said.

Defender Steve Marshall got the team’s man of the match for the third week in a row with a strong performance, while Bartett said Hayden Davidson was also impressive.

“Ben Davis was good in the middle of the park, and James McIlwain, our Irishman who has been out for about six weeks, came back with no training and no games, and played a full game, and tried from start to finish.

“And Kurt Burrow, he just tried, he tries his best every week, he puts in every week and comes to training.

“So those blokes were probably the best for us.”

With the Tamworth team now finished for the year, Bartlett described it as an indifferent season when asked to reflect on how the season had gone for his team.

“We haven’t had big numbers at training, and we got beaten by Inverell and Moree when we took 13 and 14 players and blokes played two games.

“But we finished off well, which was good, but it was just one of those seasons.”

Despite the difficulties throughout the year, Bartlett said he had been confident his team may have gone further into the finals, so was disappointed for the season to end on Saturday.

Bartlett said the first grade team suffered during some games throughout the year as some players had backed up from playing reserve grade.