Grambeau’s major in the final minute helped his team to a 15-8-98 to 15-5-95 win that gives the Tigers – who were already assured of the Central West AFL minor premiership – some extra momentum heading towards the big games.

But there was plenty to like about the Bushrangers’ performance, in which they led by six goals at one stage during the second quarter before a couple of precautionary moves from co-coach Brett Archer shifted the dynamic of the game.

Archer, understandably, took a safety-first approach with key defender Jack Vogan, who picked up a tissue injury to his knee, while Nathan Swards was also benched after breaking his nose.

“Basically, Jack could have continued if it had have been a final or that sort of thing, but we didn’t want to take any risks with him. He’s a very important player for us,” Archer said.

“Nathan got a busted nose and, again, it was the sort of thing that he might have played through in a more important game, but it was a better option to get him looked at rather than play on.

“The winning goal came from a bit of a scrap in front of the goal square which ended in a mark to the Orange player, and it was exactly the sort of situation which Jack would normally probably shut down.”

With the result immaterial to the finals equation for both sides, Bathurst would have taken a lot of heart from their first half, while the Tigers would be happy enough with their fightback.

Jordan Longmore starred for the Bushrangers, slamming through seven goals as his team built on a 13-point lead at the first change to stretch it out to 37 points in the second.

A couple of late goals from the visitors pulled it back to 17, and it was trimmed to 12 points at three-quarter-time.

Brady Bennett (five goals) and Dale Hunter (four) made the most of Vogan’s absence to keep the pressure on the hosts, and by Archer’s own admission, the reshuffling of his team meant Longmore was starved of opportunities at the back end of the game.

He still saw plenty of positives to take into this Saturday.

“To be that far in front before losing a couple of players is great. The guys will all know now that when we’ve got a full side out there and are playing our best, we can really take it up to them if they didn’t know it already,” he said.

“It made a huge difference having Jordan up front. He ended up with seven goals, though once we lost those players we simply couldn’t get the ball to him enough.

“Hopefully he is right to play this week, but he hasn’t played a lot of games this season, so we have to take a few things into account when we have our selection meeting on Tuesday night. All of us have different ideas, so we’ll see how we end up.”

ORANGE TIGERS 15-8-98 (Brady Bennett 5, Dale Hunter 4, Mick Rothnie 2, Matt Tabbernor 2, Simon Kay, Clinton Grambeau) defeated BATHURST BUSHRANGERS 15-5-95 (Jordan Long-more 7, Tom Markey 2, Cameron Richards 2, Harry Bowden, Jordan Price, Pete Grundy, Michael Long)