It would be a terrible twist of fate for Brown, who was one of his team’s best players in a historic major semi-final win at Cale Oval that had the parochial Narromine crowd in raptures.

Fears that the Gorillas could be short of a run after being minor premiers and missing the first week of the finals were soon erased on Saturday when firstly Charlie Tuck and then Lachie McCutcheon converted pressure near the Bathurst line into tries.

CJ Smyth converted both and the home side was out to 14-0 lead after 18 minutes.

Eight minutes later when a Sam Ward attempted drop goal went to the left of the sticks, the home side was awarded a penalty and again Smyth was on target for 17-0.

For the first 20 minutes the Bulldogs hadn’t been down the Narromine end of Cale Oval, but when they did they made their presence felt.

Major semi-final pressure can lead to tries and when fullback Phil Tonkin scored, Paul Miller added the conversion and a penalty goal soon after, there wasn’t much in it at 17-10 at half-time.

However, any chance Bathurst had of getting back into the game was quickly dimmed when the home side scored two great tries in the space of three minutes to get out to 31-10 with 26 minutes left.

The first try came from Ryan Pratten after McCutcheon, Ward and Charlie Macinnes kept the ball alive in a move that start on their own side of halfway. Pratten was the man with the ball in hand at the line.

A strong kicking game from fullback Craig Duffy was important for Narromine and soon after they were back pouring on the pressure in the Bathurst quarter.

A scrum win saw five-eighth Ward go to the open side but dart back to the blind side and caught the defence napping for a great individual try. Smyth’s kicking again was on line and the visitors found themselves 21 points in arrears.