It's hard work being a Pirates coach at the moment - on the heart-rate anyway.
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A week after Pirates' firsts kept their hopes of a fourth straight premiership alive with a try in the dying minutes, the second grade side conjured some last-minute heroics at Walcha on Saturday to lock in a grand final berth.
Esava Ravouvou was the 'super-sub' this time, the replacement winger cutting back on the inside and scoring with about 30 seconds remaining to snatch victory from Moree's clutches 25-19.
"I always thought if we just got one chance late we'd be able to take it. Luckily enough we did," co-coach Michael Squires said.
They didn't by his admission play their best football but just hung in there, and when it mattered were able to put it together. Leading up to Ravouvou's try they worked their way from around 30m out and through about 10 phases.
Jarrod Beaufoy and Michael Rixon had crossed in the first half to give them an 18-12 lead at the break. They then had an early chance to extend their lead but James Trappel's penalty attempt hit the post and bounced back into the field.
It was a bit of a momentum switch. The Bulls started to enjoy the better of the possession and territory and scored through winger Jayden Walker to hit the front.
Pirates though were able to restrict them to the solitary try and keep themselves in it.
"I thought our defence in the second half was what got us home," Squires said.
That was the most pleasing aspect of the performance with a lot of their fundamentals letting them down.
"We're normally a very good team controlling the ball and we're normally a very good team playing blocks of possession and position," he said.
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"But semi-final football.. what tends to happen is the heart-rate goes up and the brain muscle move a bit quicker and there were a few blokes that probably did things in the second half that they normally don't do."
Unbeaten in their last four games, he thought the way they were able to claw their way back from a big half-time deficit to beat Barraba/Gwydir in their final round clash two weeks ago helped them in those closing minutes.
"That's probably the first time this year we've come back and I think that was in our heads in that last 10 minutes," Squires said.
"Moree weren't putting us away and while ever they weren't putting us away we had a chance."
"And we always liked our chances outwide. We've got good speed there."
"Still it was a relief when that ball went over the line."
He thought Michael Rixon, Nick McCrohan and captain and co-coach Luke Buchanan were their best but said everyone played their part. The bench also had a big impact.
They now await to see who wins out of the Bulls and Gunnedah this Saturday.
Squires expects to face the Bulls and believes if they can fix their discipline (both sides had issues with their discipline with five yellow cards handed out) and cut their errors out they have a good chance of winning their first second grade premiership since 2008.
