After needing extra time to down Brothers in last year's final, this time around the Bulldogs needed a late field goal from Mitch Cornish to win the pre-season event.

The former NRL player put his side in front for the first time with less than two minutes remaining, but Nowra-Bomaderry kept fighting.

With Braydon Walsh claiming the short restart the Jets had Ryan James ruled held up over the line before Josh Coulter missed his own field goal attempt after the siren to fall 11-10.

Coach Adam Kyle was thrilled with the fighting qualities of the side after going down 10-0 in the first half.

"I actually don't think we played our best football at any stage this weekend but our defensive was outstanding," Kyle said.

"In 90 minutes (leading into the final) we had two tries scored against us, both of them off kicks, so it is really something to take away for us. This was a really good platform to set our season up against last year, we really love coming down here and will certainly be back again."

No team has won three straight West Wyalong Knockouts since Dubbo Macquarie in 1978, '79 and '80, but the Bulldogs join Gundagai and Southcity as clubs to go back-to-back in the past decade.

Nowra opened the scoring after Kurt Quinlan scored off a lovely flick pass from Josh Power-Farrell.

Former NRL player Dylan Farrell then added to Nowra's advantage as he crashed over to make it 10-0 after nine minutes.

Goulburn got on the board through Chris Hart with 18 seconds left in the half.

It took them another 10 minutes to level things when Thomas Croker put in a desperate dive to reach Tyler Cornish's kick just in time.

The Bulldogs looked to be getting on top when Mitch Cornish kicked a 40-20, only for the former Canberra playmaker to throw a forward pass off the resulting scrum.

Minutes later he more than made it up for it as slotted the winning field goal.

"We've got him in this team for those moments, to win these games and for us that is a really special win," Kyle said.

"If I'm honest he's probably never hit one at training in all the times we've practised it and he just said 'if you're going to hit one then it might as well be to win the final'."

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