Bulls-eye victory

The Bulls had some work to do at half-time but put it together in the second half to win Saturday's first elimination final, 38-21.

They'll now host Walcha on Sunday after the Rams defeated Inverell 33-15 in the second elimination final.

There was nothing in at half-time with the Rams up by just two points. “It was a hard battle to start off with,” Rams coach Barry Hoy said.

“The blokes had to pick themselves up after last week (heavy loss to Pirates) and things weren't sticking early.”

But eventually they started to stick, and the Rams’ class came to the fore. On Saturday the Lions showed little sign of a side playing their first final since 2010.

“Quirindi started very well,” Bulls president Paul King said. “We were down 14-3 there at one point. They scored two excellent tries through their backs.”

The Bulls hit back with a try off a rolling maul and were co-coach Simon Hall felt starting to get a bit of momentum as they headed into half-time trailing 14-10.

“They just opened our backline up a couple of times in the first half. Elliot (Tourle) threw a couple of good passes to guys coming back on the angle,” Hall said.

“We had a fair bit of possession but couldn't quite get our structure to stick.”

After a few words at half-time they came out firing in the second half.

“About 10 minutes into the second half we switched into gear and scored three or four tries in the space of 15 minutes,” Hall said.

That was effectively the winning of the game with the Bulls stampeding their way to a 38-14 lead.

“They played some really good football,” King said. Moree dominated possession and led the way through their defence. "They were actually making metres in defence,” he said.

It was one of the big improvements for them in the second half.

“We had a few words about that (defence) and everyone responded and picked that up, (and) we just got the front foot ball,” Hall said. “That was the big thing.

“When we were able to get front foot ball we were able to do a bit more in attack. The rest of the time Quirindi defended pretty well.”