A LAST-minute behind from Bathurst Bushrangers Rebels’ Tom Regan took his team to a thrilling one-point win over Orange Tigers in Saturday’s AFL Central West thriller.
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The undefeated run of the Rebels continued thanks to the nail-biting 7-8-50 to 7-9-51 success at Bloomfield Oval.
Rebels led the match for just 30 seconds but it happened to be at the most crucial moment.
Tigers ran out to a 25-2 lead at quarter time and the visitors spent the rest of the match slowly chipping away at that margin.
Rebels improved their play across the park as the match went on and by three-quarter time were within reach at 42-32.
You wouldn’t want to go out there and put yourself through that every week, but games like that are great character building for the team.
- Steve Grundy
Josh Coyte and Ricky Webb kicked back-to-back goals for the Rebels in the final term to level the scores at 50-all before the Bathurst side hit the lead in the dying stages through Regan.
“Orange came out very, very strong. We were a little bit flat at the start but we have to give full credit to Orange because they came out firing,” Rebels co-coach Steve Grundy.
“They were able to bring it out of the midfield far too easily and early on that gave them the upper hand.”
Grundy said a genuine shift in attitude from the Rebels wasn’t found until the main break.
“They had the breeze in the first quarter and that probably helped them out a little. We then had the breeze for the second quarter but we probably didn’t use that advantage enough,” he said.
“It wasn’t until half-time where we took a good, hard look at ourselves and what each of us had to do out there. We changed a few things around position-wise and improved our play in the next half.”
Rebels had already beaten the Tigers once this year in a 45-point win at George Park.
Grundy believed an improved Orange squad was certain to show up for their home fixture.
“We expected Orange to be a bigger force. We’d played them way back in round one, so we knew coming towards the back half of the season that they would be a very different side,” he said.
“You wouldn’t want to go out there and put yourself through that every week, but games like that are great character building for the team.”
Matt Griffin was the game’s only multiple goalscorer, with three to his name.
Connor Milliss, Regan, Coyte and Webb scored the Rebels’ other majors.
