Sometimes it’s the final play matters most.
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With 20 seconds to go and his side down in the men’s premier grade grand final, The Casuals’ Daniel Foley managed to slip past the watertight Advanced Communications defence and sparked a last-gasp dash to the try line.
With the gap closing fast and no support close at hand, Foley threw a Hail Mary to his right – and for the first time all season, it didn’t come off.
And that’s the tale of how Cobras clinched a gripping decider against the odds and a side with all the momentum.
In all fairness, Cobras already held a 7-4 lead but the dropped pass summed up what was a perplexing and entertaining finale.
In a match littered as many errors as acrobatic touchdowns, the inexperienced Cobras shrugged off an early deficit and pulled out their grittiest defensive performance of the year to edge The Casuals 7-4 at Jubilee Park.
“We’ve just been building each week and getting better and better,” Cobras veteran Darren Reynoldson said.
“We lost pretty easily in the early rounds but as the season’s gone on, we’ve just ticked all the right boxes and it’s good to come out on top.”
As expected, The Casuals came firing out of the blocks with an early touchdown but Cobras were up to the challenge with Chris Dowell equalising in the third minute.
Suddenly it was one-way traffic as Cobras struck twice more in the space of a minute with Patrick Voss’ diving effort easily taking out the highlight of the year.
A half time lead quickly stretched when player of the match Andrew Baggio found the chalk with a long dive and before anyone could so much as blink an eye, Cobras had gone from third-placed finals ring-ins to undisputed premiers.
“These young fellas who’ve come in have just been great for us,” Reynoldson said.
“Some of their plays tonight were really good.”