In front of a bumper Ladies’ Day crowd at Ashwood Park the Bathurst outfit led 8-5 at half-time and while the lead changed hands a couple of times in a grinding second half, Bulldogs prevailed 23-19 despite being down to 14 for 10 minutes.

The killer blow was a satisfying penalty goal in the dying stages that pushed Bathurst’s lead out to four and was landed by Brad Glasson, redemption for the two set shots he missed in his side’s 20-18 preliminary final loss to the Platypi.

“We had to make a decision this week as to whether we were just going to make up the numbers and play nice football, or go out there and earn something,” Oxley said.

“So we had a few honest conversations during the week and watched a bit of video footage from the Emus game – we knew we really needed to come out here and take the game.

“We had some issues last week in regards to our defence, we gave soft shoulders to Emus. I really thought we could have won that game … we just didn’t finish the job. It had me wondering if we had the mettle to win the hard moments, but today we [did].”

Plenty of those hard moment came early as Forbes peppered Bulldogs inside their own 22, but the Bathurst wall held and on the back of that the home side lifted.

Bulldogs strung some phases together and although they missed a penalty goal in the 25^th minute, they opened the scoring not long after when Mark Donnelly barged his way over in the left corner.

Brad Glasson slotted a penalty 10 minutes from the break to extend that lead to eight, but the quality of Forbes showed. The Platypi, as they’ve done for so long, mounted pressure on Bulldogs and it paid off when Simon Uphill crossed.

His try went unconverted though, and Bulldogs held that 8-5 lead until early in the second half, Jarrod Hall barging his way over on the back of a penalty in the red zone, which led to Bathurst second-rower Ollie Barclay being yellow carded.

But Bulldogs lifted again.

After Glasson shrugged off a defender and found a flying Harry Webber, his try pushed Bathurst back within one before Tyler Cook dived over in the right corner to make it 20-12 in favour of the home side.

Josh Coulthurst’s 67^th minute try and Uphill’s conversion drew Forbes to within one score of the lead at 20-19, but Glasson’s penalty goal extended the buffer to four.

Forbes mounted a last-gasp raid in the final two minutes, but Oxley’s men held firm to inflict the Platypi’s first loss of 2018 and pick up their second win.