After coming from third to make the grand final, they then fought back to level the scores at full-time and force the game into extra-time.

They prevailed in the end 32-31 after a gripping two periods of seven-minutes, the atmosphere in the Sports Dome reaching fever pitch with ever goal scored.

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"It was a fantastic win," McKenzie said.

The loss was Inverell's only for the tournament and followed a 12-all draw, and three and four point wins over Tamworth in their previous meetings.

The spoils were shared around with Quirindi making it back-to-back Division 1 (opens) titles with a 28-18 win over Tamworth while Inverell avenged a one-point loss to the Tamworth 14s in the major semi-final with a 26-23 victory in Division 3 (under-15s).

As was the case with their 17s counterparts, they were undefeated through the round games.

It was a very different story for the Tamworth 17s. They finished the round games with five losses, three wins and a draw but put it together when it counted.

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McKenzie said their heart was what got them through.

"That extra-time was tough work for us seeing that Inverell had had that extra game off. So for our girls to pull it out with the amount of injuries that we had as well, to play through and fight like that was awesome," she said.

"We had one girl that went down in our last round game this morning and she ended up in a moon boot so she couldn't play."

"At Inverell we had one girl that did her knee so she was gone for the day and had another one playing the final with a bung ankle."

As well as their fighting spirit, a few tactical changes made a difference in the decider.

"We'd had the rounds to watch them and work out what they were doing and came up with some plays that we were hoping were going to disturb their play which I think very much did," McKenzie said.