The wind did its best to interfere but it couldn’t stop the Bathurst Bushrangers Outlaws from blowing the Orange Tigers away late in their Central West AFL meeting at George Park on Saturday.

In blustery conditions the Outlaws flipped the result of last year’s grand final in Saturday’s rematch as they defeated the Tigers 12-23-95 to 7-11-53.

Outlaws went into the half-time break leading 29-19 in a low-scoring affair before they found their feet in a dominant end to the match.

Co-coach Brett Archer said despite the Tigers not having the bite they did compared to the previous season, the victory is still one for his team to savour.

“They’re the defending premiers, though they’re definitely not the same team they were last year. There’s still a lot of dangerous guys in there like Tim Barry. You can never go easy on them,” he said.

“Our midfield was very strong. Bill Watterson was brilliant and Peter Grundy and Matt Archer had great games. Our backline was also strong throughout the game.

“We weren’t sure how some of our younger guys were going to go and how they would mix in with some of the more experienced players, but they were excellent. Jeremy Gibbons played his first game since juniors and Sam Gibb was great. They played out of their skin.”

Nine of the 12 goals for the Outlaws came in the second half as their fitness work paid dividends, dominating the midfield and winning more contests.

Nathan Swards picked up three goals to be the Outlaws’ top scorer, while Watterson and Casey White each picked up two.

There was still plenty to reflect upon for the Outlaws, particularly their work in front of the opponents’ goals.

Plenty of kicking practice will be on the cards at training for the Bushrangers this week, courtesy of their large tally of behinds.

“You don’t know what to expect when you’ve got a new line-up from Orange. As for our team, we had a few trial games where we looked strong in the middle and that was the same this game,” Archer said.

“We wasted a lot of opportunities and kicked far too many behinds. The wind was swirling around a lot, so a lot of 40 to 50 metre kicks were going for behinds, but I still couldn’t count how many chances we wasted with inaccurate kicking in front of goal.

“It was a good physical game, very back and forth, it was just that inaccuracy that let us down.”

The Outlaws’ victory followed on from the Bushrangers Rebels’ success on the same ground over the Young Saints, capping off a memorable start to the season for the club.

BATHURST BUSHRANGERS OUTLAWS 12-23-95 (Nathan Swards 3, Bill Watterson 2, Casey White 2, Matt Archer, Bill Watterson, Peter Grundy, Jacob Davey, Alex Mills, Emmitt Carr-Smith) defeated ORANGE TIGERS 7-11-53 (Tim Barry 2, Michael Rothnie 2, Matt Dippolito, Jamie Cox, Chris Pethybridge)