Moree survived a late scare to defend their Central North second grade title in Tamworth on Saturday.
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The Bulls’ fourth second grade premiership in five years, it was harder to achieve that it looked like it was going to be when Brennan Sinclair gave them a 22-6 lead early in the second half.
But Narrabri found a second wind, fullback Michael Cain leaping high - aka Israel Folau - to spectacularly regather a “ballsy kick” as Blue Boars coach Tom Groth described it from Hunter Harley one-handed and close the gap to 22-13 with 15 minutes to go.
Cain scored again 10 minutes later, but couldn’t add the extras making it a four-point game with five minutes to play.
The Blue Boars were camped in the Bulls’ territory for a lot of that, and for the last two minutes had a man advantage after Bulls outside centre Sean Robson was sin-binned. But they couldn’t break the Bulls defence, a crunching tackle after the Blue Boars took a quick tap from a penalty jolting the ball loose and seeing the Bulls hold on to win 22-18.
Bulls co-coach Peter Copeman credited their defence with getting them home.
“Our defence was excellent that last seven or eight minutes,” he said.
It was pretty good all game with the Blue Boars “never really looking like scoring until late in the second half”.
The Blue Boars were on top the opening 10 minutes, and courtesy of Cain kicked out to a 6-nil lead.
“I think we were a bit flat and we made mistakes that we spoke about we weren’t going to make,” Copeman said.
Eventually the Bulls got a bit of territory, and chancing their arm from a penalty bagged their first points through Jake Cutcliffe.
Looking dangerous when they spun the ball to the backs, winger Trevor Tighe put the Bulls in front 12 minutes later with an NRL-style finish in the corner. Breakaway Andrew Fuller, who was later named the player of the grand final, extended their lead to 15-6 at the break with a try in the last 30 seconds.
“I thought we had the game (at half-time) but I knew we had to work hard,” Copeman said.
“I knew Narrabri would come back. But I didn’t think they’d come back that well.”
He felt the momentum shift with Cain’s first try.
“They got on a roll and they got confident,” Copeman said, conceding he wasn’t “confident at all” the Bulls were going to get there.
The Blue Boars were rueing their inability to turn their early dominance into more points. Pinning the Bulls in their half with some smart kicks and building some good pressure, they just let it off with mistakes.
“We started really well but just dropped off after the first 15 and they scored three tries,” Groth said.
“We dropped off too many tackles and they got a roll on and they turned it into points.”
After addressing a few things at half-time, he thought they were the better team in the second half.
And as they made their late surge, he thought they were going to steal it from the Bulls.
“I thought we had the momentum and we had the crowd behind us,” he said.
“I thought we were in with a massive show at the end.”
But the Bulls defence was just too good.
“They defended their line really well in the last five minutes,” Groth said.
“Full credit to Moree they’ve been the best team all year.”
