With seven goals in the final quarter, the Bushpigs put paid to the Jets’ finals ambitions with a 15.13 (103) to 7.6 (48) victory.

It’s the second time this season CSU have strung together three straight wins and the second time in eight days they’ve won by more than nine goals.

With three games to play, the Bushpigs are three wins and a mountain of percentage clear of the sixth-placed Jets, virtually guaranteeing they’re on their way to the finals. 

“If the ladder’s telling me that (we’re playing finals), yeah, I suppose,” CSU coach Pat Noonan said.

“But I don’t really want to talk about it. That’s three weeks away and we’ve got three games in the season left that we’re pretty hungry to win. I want to put those to bed first and then worry about what’s going on.”

They did their best to put the Jets to bed early on Saturday, dominating the majority of the first half to lead by 20 points late in the first quarter and 28 late in the second.

However, with a couple of superb centre clearances, the Jets kicked two goals just before quarter time and one in the fading stages of the second to keep hanging in. And with a strong start to the second half, they added two more in five minutes to be just 10 points down. 

The problem was, the visitors could only produce their best in patches while CSU produced the run and took the rewards for most of the game, and certainly the rest of the second half. By the time Vas Seker made the most of a nice Jake Raves pass, to kick his third goal before three-quarter-time, the Pigs were up by 23. 

By the end of the game, Seker had kicked six goals.

“He’s been playing really strong every week. It’s good to see that he’s getting his confidence up like that,” Noonan said. “ I think he’s at least in the top five forwards in the league, for sure. He keeps doing his job and I’ll keep letting him do it that’s for sure.”

 The beauty for the Bushpigs is the ruckman/forward was in a long queue of players putting their hands up to be named among their best.

“It was pleasing. We’re starting off a little bit slow sometimes but we’re getting ourselves back in there. To the boys’ credit they worked really hard and it paid off in the last quarter, which was really good,” Noonan said.

“I think just they’re willingness to run for each other was really good. We made a few silly mistakes and let them get a few centre clearances. They’re things that we need to work on, that’s fine. 

“But our run today was awesome, forward and back.”

Shane Carroll led the Bushpigs’ run all day while Joe and Tom Stapleton were a handful up forward and Diarmid Cleary and Jake Raves superb across half-back.

Joe Stapleton came off the ground rubbing the back of his knee late in the fourth quarter – shortly after firing a sweet pass to Brayden Ambler (who kicked truly). The Pigs hope it’s nothing to worry about it.  

For the Jets, Alex Rogers, along with Chris Bell, Jack Fisher and Matt Carroll did their best to keep them in the contest. 

CSU host The Rock-Yerong Creek next week – who went down to Temora – while the Jets are at home to Marrar who are coming off a big win at Barellan.