After a season of mixed results, the Crookwell Dogs saved their best performance for last night, when they upset the Taralga Tigers to claim a 22-7 victory in their final round game of the year.
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"This is the pinnacle," Dogs coach Bruce Nixon said.
"We lost against Taralga 10-8 the first time we played them this year. If this is our last game, so be it, but this is what we play footy for.
"Our rivalry is a friendly one, even if things get a bit toey on the field, we always have a beer afterwards."
The match was initially supposed to be played on July 17, but the Upper Lachlan Shire Council closed Crookwell Memorial Oval after rain the night prior.
So, the Dogs offered Taralga the chance to play the match last night, and the Tigers accepted.
"I'd really like to thank Taralga for giving us the game. They didn't have to, but it shows what a good club they are," Nixon said.
The match was also an opportunity to give Ken McCallum and Scott Kensit a home crowd farewell, after the pair announced intention to retire at the end of the season.
They will both be missed, Nixon said, not just for their vast experience, but the example they set for younger players.
"Older players bring a connection between their era to the new era," he said.
"It's important that those guys come into the new era so the young players understand what it means to play for the Crookwell Dogs. It means so much to them, to be out there at their age and still wanting to play, and the new guys coming through see what it means to them.
"If you lose your old guys too soon, you lose your club."
Though the Tigers sit in second place on the ladder, and had only lost twice before last night, the Dogs put on a sterling performance and never looked in danger of relinquishing the lead they claimed in the 15th minute.
This was particularly impressive given the wet, muddy, and cold conditions in which the game was played at Crookwell Memorial Oval.
Though no rain fell during the match, it quickly became difficult to maintain possession and footing.
But Crookwell's trademark style of short passes while steadily working their way up the field paid dividends, while Taralga's tactics hindered them early.
In the first half of the game, the Tigers sought open space with long passes, in the hopes of finding room to run.
With a ball which was about as easy to grip as a particularly wet bar of soap, this caused them to struggle for consistent possession and allowed Crookwell to dominate early.
"I think on a wet night on a heavy ground, we needed to play that tighter game that's structured," Nixon said.
"On a dry day, people wonder why you do it, but on a wet night you see the benefits of keeping those pods close and not trying to move the ball too wide and too quick.
"I think Taralga got themselves caught out a bit, they were trying to throw the ball out wide on a wet night and got a bit lost."
So effective were Crookwell's tactics that the Tigers did not find the tryline until the dying minutes of the game, when the result was already beyond doubt.
On a night of many positives, perhaps the biggest standout for Nixon was the team's fitness.
In the second half, Taralga began to flag and their fatigue became clear as the Dogs started dominating the scrums.
"We still do fitness every night we train for 20 minutes," Nixon said.
"A lot of clubs don't worry about that. My big thing is if you're a fit team, you have less injuries and when it comes to the last ten minutes of the game you've still got gas and, even if the other team is a better side, sometimes you can just roll over them."
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