South Launceston finally has been dethroned of its premiership crown, but the stubborn rulers of the NTFA put up one lasting fight in a seven-point loss to Bracknell.
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The Bulldogs won a stay of execution last week with a comeback semi-final victory and history almost repeated when all hope appeared lost.
Bracknell held a 46-point lead in the final term that was whittled down when the two-time reigning champions kicked the last seven goals of the preliminary final on a heavy Longford track.
A scoreless final two-and-a-half minutes kept the Dogs at bay in a 14.16 (100) to 15.3 (93) thriller on Saturday.
Winning Redlegs coach Gary Shipton admitted he didn’t expect anything less when his men entered the three-quarter time huddle.
“They came out in that last quarter and just kept coming at us, piling on the goals. We did the work early during the first three quarters,” he said.
“We knew they wouldn’t give up; they’re a proud club, won two recent flags, so we knew they’d be coming.”
South’s ageing legs kept on running their rivals into the ground, moving the ball more effectively to score six goals inside 10 minutes to the death.
Full forward Darren Crawford started to move to the right spots and find space, booting four of his seven goals in the quarter.
Bulldogs coach Leigh Harding said the turnaround was just “too little, too late”.
“We came out pretty good in the first quarter, then got hammered pillar to post in the second to third quarters and the start of the last even, but then we got things rolling again,” he said.
“The message at the end was just to show a bit of pride and to win that last quarter.
“We certainly didn’t rule out the game at any stage – we thought we could still win the game, but 46 points is probably just little bit much.”
Bracknell started out with five scoring shots to four in the first quarter, but still trailed by 10 points.
But it took the Redlegs just 50 seconds of the next term to score its second, one of seven goals for the quarter.
Only Jordan Tepper not moving for more than a minute from a collision tempered his rivals’ four-goal run.
Shipton last week accused all but three or four of his players failing to turn up, but a week later said the side had its best 22 all contributors for the year, with Joe Chilcott and Callum Mulder the stars.
“We worked a lot harder to get to the contest and change a little bit with the way we were playing,” Shipton said.
South felt the difference. It’s game plan pulled apart by a hungrier Redlegs outfit.
Harding admitted it was a sad end to the club’s flag era since returning from the TSL.
“Certainly as a football club and a senior group, we have a lot of pride that we’ve been professional,” he said.