Playing their major semi-final after finishing second (Panthers) and third (St Pat’s) at the conclusion of the minor premiership, Gibson’s wobbly but valuable one pointer with six minutes to go was the difference between two evenly matched sides.

The result leaves St Pat’s to play an eliminator against Mudgee this weekend at Jack Arrow Oval.

St Pat’s would not have been expecting such a thrilling conclusion to the clash after they raced out to an early lead through tries to Rhys Frame and Shannon Peters to give them a 12-0 advantage.

By the admission of captain-coach Aaron Bateup, it took Panthers 20 minutes to catch up to their opponents’ enthusiasm and willingness to throw themselves into the contest. Had they taken any longer the game may well have been out of reach altogether.

Panthers did recover themselves though and scored a brace of tries of their own to get the game back to relative parity by the half-time break, only the successful goal kicking of Pat’s Jeremy Smith providing a buffer at 12-8.

The game closed down to some degree after the break in a less open period of play, but Panthers were the more dominant outfit and put two tries on to Pats’ one.

However, Panthers’ kicker Grant Cock could only land one of his four conversions and as such, the match became an 18-all stalemate with time running out.

“There was about six minutes left and we had a set of six in their [Saints’] half, and we had a set plan to roll it in-goal on the fifth and play for a repeat set,” Bateup explained.

“Gibbo [Gibson] thought he’d have a shot though, so it surprised me a bit and even though she was a pretty wobbly old kick it went through.”

Bateup paid tribute to half Trent Hotham, Michael Wicks in the second row along with youngster Narayan Rodwell and also acknowledged that his side had been slightly fortunate not to be further behind given the way they started the match.