The Bushpigs came out breathing fire and piled on six unanswered goals in the opening 13 minutes to set the tone from the outset, going on to record a 15.5 (95) to 7.10 (52) victory at Peter Hastie Oval.

Entering the final round in fifth but far from safe, the win proved enough to seal fifth spot with Northern Jets, who were only four percentage points behind them, going down to East Wagga-Kooringal by 21 points.

It means not only will CSU play finals for the first time since 2018, they will go in full of momentum after downing North Wagga and now TRYC in the final two rounds.

CSU coach Travis Cohalan was thrilled for his group to get through to finals.

"Really exciting. The aim at the start of the year was finals," Cohalan said.

"We've had a fair bit of adversity this year, things going wrong with players missing through injury and unavailability, a little bit more than that too I suppose with some season-ending injuries to some of our better players so for the boys to dig deep, show resolve and keep turning up week after week, even when it looked a bit dark there at different times, it's a credit to them.

"I said to them before and after the game I would be proud of you regardless of what happened today because you're shown a lot to keep turning up through adversity and keep having a crack. So it's real exciting."

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Cohalan is also happy that the Bushpigs have proven they won't simply be making up the numbers, with two big scalps in the past fortnight.

"One hundred per cent. We always enjoy playing against quality opponents. The Rock are certainly quality opponents and North Wagga were a quality opponent last week and to roll into finals having beaten two teams above you, it's really positive," he said.

"It might have taken until the last round for us to get there but we sort of thought we were in that top five and we needed to prove it and get there but I'm really glad the boys managed to do that because I've been pretty big on the fact that we deserved to be in finals."

The Magpies had a few players out, but certainly still had enough quality out on the ground to give a better account than what they did.

The visitors found themselves down by 28 points at quarter-time and while they were better after he first break, they never got closer than that margin.

Max Findlay was superb at centre-half-forward for CSU, while Dusty Rogers continued his good form with another rock solid display at centre-half-back.

Andrew Dickins and Sam Barrow also shone, while Jeff Ladd and Jacob Collingridge both finished with four goals apiece.

Cohalan said the blistering start obviously played a big part in the win.

"It certainly did. Last week against North Wagga, we were down 29-9 at quarter time and to have to fight back and keep finding a way to get back into it," he said.

"I don't know the formula, we were just up for the occasion today. We didn't talk about finals at all during the week, we wanted to acquit ourselves well against The Rock, they're a quality team and we just wanted to put it to them after what happened out at The Rock last time.

"We thought we could have got a lot closer so we just wanted to get up and about early, which we did."

For the Magpies, Cooper Diessel aggravated a calf injury, while Dean Biermann (unwell) finished the game off. They are likely to welcome back James Roberts, Mitch Stephenson, David Pieper and Jordie Kemp next week.

Riley Budd tried hard all day for the Magpies, while Liam Lupton also gave them energy.

CSU expect to welcome back Harry Wakefield and Harry Turner for next week's elimination final.

Full-time

CSU Bushpigs 6.0 10.2 13.4 15.5 (95)

TRYC Magpies 1.2 3.4 6.6 7.10 (52)

GOALS: CSU Bushpigs: J.Ladd 4, J.Collingridge 4, W.Archibald 2, M.Findlay 2, S.Barrow 1, L.Moore 1; TRYC Magpies: R.Budd 2, C.Terlich 1, N.Budd 1, T.Hannam 1, L.Lupton 1, D.Cummins 1

BEST: CSU Bushpigs: M.Findlay, D.Rogers, A.Dickins, S.Barrow, J.Collingridge, J.Ladd; TRYC Magpies: L.Lupton, T.Hannam, N.Budd, R.Budd, D.Cummins, W.Adams.

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