The New England Nomads have reversed last year’s grand final result on the back of a scintillating second half against the Gunnedah Bulldogs at Wolseley Park on Saturday.
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The Nomads kicked away in the third and fourth quarters to score a 18.16 (124) to 4.12 (36) victory, much to new coach James Treweeke’s delight.
“Super,” Treweeke said of the win.
“Grand final rematch back in Gunnedah. I couldn’t have asked for a better effort from the boys.
“Half a new team this year. I was hoping we played together as a team and it felt like we’d played together for a few years.
“[Against the] premiers from last year, to come back here and beat them like that, it was a super effort from the boys.”
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Gunnedah coach Andrew George described the match as “a bit of a weird one” and the way the scoring played out told the story.
At half-time the score read 3.11 (29) to 2.8 (20) in favour of New England as both sides’ accuracy was off.
However, the Nomads kicked six goals to one in the third quarter before putting the game to bed with a nine-goal final term.
“First game, everyone’s going to be a bit scratchy but I thought at half time, we came in pretty happy with where we were,” Treweeke said.
“We thought we could do better and we obviously showed that in the last half.
“We kicked away, especially in that last quarter and never gave up. [We were] still kicking goals on the siren. I couldn't have been happier.”
George said his side ran out of legs in the second half after the close first half.
“I think both of us were a bit off in front of goal. There was a fair few behinds, so that kept us in it,” George said after the match.
“The second half, they seemed to straighten up a lot.
“They got a lot more shots on goal. We didn’t really get inside our 50 all that much in the second half and when we did, we weren’t turning it into goals.”
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Treweeke said “effort” got his side over the line as New England had nine separate goal-scorers.
At the top of that list was Angus Quail who kicked five in the 88-point win and was also at the top of Treweeke’s list for best on ground.
“Our number 29, Angus Quail, has come from Sydney this year. He’s a big boy and he kicked five or six,” Treweeke said.
“We lost Clarrie [Barker] from last year. It was big loss for us but I think Angus has filled that spot.”
The other AFL North West matches saw Moree beat the Tamworth Kangaroos 16.19 (115) to 7.9 (51) while Inverell accounted for the Tamworth Swans 20.26 (146) to 2.2 (14).
