Bathurst Giants edge out Dubbo Demons by one point in AFL Central West senior men's thriller

Except it wasn't a draw.

After the goal umpires conferred with one another it was determined that the scoreboard at South Dubbo Oval was incorrect and the Giants had finished the match one point ahead.

That led to big celebrations from the Giants, who had played out the entire match without any substitutes and had managed to turn around a 107-point thrashing the Demons had handed them just two rounds earlier.

Giants produced one of their most inspired quarters of football from the season thus far, as their big final term resurgence saw them come away with the victory.

The visitors made up a 19 point deficit and held the Demons to just a single behind in the fourth quarter to claim a confidence building success.

"They should be sticking wanted posters of our team up around Dubbo because we stole that one," Giants coach Mark Kennedy said.

"The scoreboard said it was a draw, and I would have been happy with that because that's a 100-point turnaround from the last time we went up there to play them.

"For us to go over there again with just 16 players and no reserves - because we were split from our reserve grade team - and play out the four quarters with no rest was an amazing effort.

"For me to say it was an amazing effort would be understating this result."

It was some words of reassurance and a change in tactics that led to a Giants victory.

"We were down by three goals going into the last quarter and there were a couple of comments from Nic Broes who said that we just need to slow the ball down and control it a bit better," Kennedy said.

"Our style of play is that we play on and go but it just wasn't working for us. That helped us settle in the final quarter and we were able to kick two goals straight away.

"You could see the feeling around the playing group change and you could see the confidence grow. There were a few nail biting moments over the last 10 minutes where the ball was going end to end but there were no scores, then it was a rushed behind that got us home at the end."

Kennedy said several players helped spur the team on to victory in the last term.

"Cooper Brien, Jack Goodsell and Nic Broes played really well. Our backline of Damien Cuff, Jacob Molkentin and James Kennedy did a great job of stopping what was pretty much the same forward line as last time," he said.

"A big shout out goes to Will Sloan who had a great debut and Chris Smart who came up from ressies to help us out and ended up kicking two goals."

The win now has Giants level with Dubbo on 12 points but the Demons hold on to second spot based on percentage.

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