The Crows are the first team through to the grand final after proving too good for the minor premiers, 12.16 (88) to 9.7 (61) at Narrandera Sportsground.

Leeton-Whitton took a little time to find their feet but eventually continued their red-hot finals form to put away their second premiership challenger in as many weeks.

The Crows trailed by 11 points, two points and one point at the three breaks but with a breeze and the momentum behind them, they kicked the only four goals of the final term to clinch the victory.

It is exciting times for the Crows’ faithful. There is a sense of timing about Leeton-Whitton’s charge as they look to win their first Riverina League flag and end the league’s longest premiership drought.

Leeton-Whitton coach Jade Hodge is happy to be through with a week’s rest.

“It’s good. It gives us a chance to rest up. We don’t have to worry about going into an elimination next we now do we?” Hodge said.

“We can watch the other blokes belt each other around a bit. It gives us a couple of weeks for us to really work on our game plan, really fine tune it.”

The Crows were good right across the board.

Mason Dryburgh was strong in the ruck, Bryce O’Garey again led the charge through the midfield, while Sean Wilkinson was a constant threat in attack, kicking four goals.

“There was no individual efforts. I think across the board, I couldn’t go through and tell you one person who didn’t have a good game. When it was their turn to go, they went. That’s what we’re about,” Hodge said.

“At the end of the day, games like this, it’s your last three or four picked that make the difference in the end. Everyone’s got their top five or six good players, it’s the evenness across the board that really counts in the end.”

With the Crows through to a second consecutive grand final, with the scalps of top two teams under their belt, Hodge is happy with the football his team is playing.

“We’re really confident with how we move the footy forward, it’s just shutting sides down going the other way. We don’t want to turn it into a shootout. It’s not the way we play,” he said.

“We really want to apply that pressure and that hasn’t changed from last year. Last year we probably didn’t have the ball movement going forward, the pace moving forward anyway, the way we move the footy a little bit quicker this year.

“Our pressure last year was what got us to that last game. We haven’t taken that away, we’ve just added little bits in our game plan moving forward.”

For Collingullie, full-forward Marc Geppert was on from the outset and finished with five goals. Tom Keogh, Dan Kennedy and Jayden Klemke were others to play well.

The Demons will now have to regroup and bounce back in next Sunday’s preliminary final, where they will play the winner of MCUE and Griffith.