With five minutes to go in the final quarter of the AFL Central West preliminary final, Orange Tigers had their backs to the wall.
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An undermanned, battered, and bruised Bathurst Giants outfit was throwing everything the side could at the Tigers' defence, cutting what had been a 16 point three-quarter-time deficit to just a two-point margin.
Enter Mick Evans.
The Tigers skipper, having just come back onto the field after cramps, streamed down the wing unmanned, scooped up a Kirk Phillips handball, and slotted the most iconic Tigers goal since Andrew Henry's "I just kicked it" moment in the 2018 grand final.
I was just in the right place at the right time and somehow it went through.
- Tigers captain Mick Evans
The Tigers were through to the grand final courtesy of a 11-4-70 to 9-8-62 thriller.
For the Giants, players, supporters and coaches alike - devastation. Players dropping to their knees and sprawling on the grass said more than words possibly could.
Having toppled the Tigers twice in 2019, they were hoping to avoid the repeat of last year's preliminary final loss and advance to their first AFLCW grand final.
It wasn't to be. On the same stage and in the same place, the end was the same result: a thrilling win to the yellow and black, albeit by eight points instead of two.
Evans' goal cut against the grain of the game, which for three quarters had involved the Tigers taking the ascendancy for the first two thirds before the Giants managed to scrape and burrow and fight their way back into the contest through dogged determination and run and carry.
The Giants fought on despite the loss of Bailey Brien, who was in everything early, to a hamstring injury before James Kennedy damaged his heel, Dylan Furnell took a heavy hit to the shin and Zac Yandle went to hospital after popping his shoulder.
Furnell played on despite the knock - he had to if the orange and charcoal wanted 18 on the field - and was one of two Giants with a chance to put the visitors up in the final five minutes.
His set shot, after three Giants goals in a row, hit the post from 35 metres out before before Brendan Longley won a two-on-one in the goal-square with a game-saving tackle only minutes later.
Evans said he was "absolutely stoked" with the win and grand final spot and there had been "no passengers".
"They really were coming hard, we knew that they would because they're a very fit side and well drilled," he said.
"I think at the end we were starting to panic a little a bit so to pull it together in those last five minutes, and hold them out and get one more goal on top means a heap to the side.
"We knew we had the right personnel for finals football, we knew if we were hard over the ball we'd put ourselves in a position to win it."
As for his goal - "I was just in the right place at the right time and somehow it went through".
A shattered Giants coach Mark Kennedy said his side had "thrown everything at it" and paid credit to the Tigers for the win.
"I can't be prouder for the guys to come over undermanned, we've only had 21 and with four bad injuries during the game and to still keep working for each other - all we wanted to do was test Orange under pressure in that last quarter, get the ball forward and see what happened," Kennedy said.
"We threw everything at them and we had a talk at three quarter time and the guys dug deep. [We had] a couple of missed opportunities forward, but credit to Orange.
"Finals footy is finals footy, we came over with the team that we had and it's up to the guys to do it on the day. They went pretty close."
- ORANGE TIGERS 11-4-70 (Andrew Nelson, Charlie Kemp, Tim Bylsma 2 goals, Callan Hunt, Pete Byrne, Tyson Hannus, Mick Evans 1) def BATHURST GIANTS 9-8-62 (Emmett Carr-Smith, Nic Broes 2 goals, Paul Jenkins, Sam Sloan, Aidan Macauley, Bailey Brein, Josh Broes 1)
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