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Tongala 3.2, 5.5, 6.6, 10.9 (69)
Mulwala 4.0, 5.3, 7.8, 9.8 (62)
Tongala fought tooth and nail to snare victory against Mulwala on Saturday.
The Blues came back from eight points down early in the final term in a low-scoring and wind-affected Murray Football League affair to emerge triumphant by seven points and book a spot in the penultimate weekend of the season.
Mulwala looked the more likely of the two sides to break the game open early in the contest, slotting four straight majors to the scoring end, but the Blues held firm to go into quarter-time just four points down.
A one-goal swing in the second stanza had the Blues up by two points at the main break, but it was the third stanza which proved the decisive one in the match.
The Lions had most of the running, but could only manage 2.5 to 1.1 to leave the door ajar for Tongala — and star forward Makenzie Ryan gladly charged it off its hinges in the final term.
"I'm definitely really proud of the effort the boys put in today, it wasn't our prettiest game of footy — obviously the conditions weren't great — but just the way we battled back in that last quarter (was brilliant)," Tongala coach Jordan Souter said.
"We got within two points and they got another goal, we could have just thrown the towel in then, but to our credit we never stopped and that's sort of what we pride ourselves on when we put our jumper on, never give in and always finish the games off strong.
"It was a great come-from-behind win in a final, we've got a lot of young blokes that haven't had a lot of finals experience and I'm really proud of the way they went about it today."
Ryan presented superbly out of full-forward to clunk multiple contested grabs on the lead and boot a pair of crucial majors, with the Blues clearing the space in front of him after watching the Lions struggle to find clear shots on goal in the third quarter.
"We were really lucky in the third quarter they were definitely on top and probably had 80 per cent of the play, they just got stuck in that dead pocket out there and to our boys' credit we probably defended that pocket pretty well," Souter said.
"We were really lucky they missed a few shots in that third quarter, but that's how the cookie crumbles and just to finish off the way we did we learnt from their mistakes in that third quarter — don't get stuck in that pocket — and we really funneled the ball through the dangerous side in the last quarter and it paid dividends in the end.
"Makka Ryan really stepped up in that last quarter, he might have ended up with two or three goals and some really good marks, he plays well when the pressure's on."
Ryan finished with four majors for the match and was among his side's better players with Jack Hammond, Corey Nexhip, Nick Woods, Souter and Cam Ilett — although the latter had a stellar battle with Mulwala's Liam Russell all day.
Even after Ryan's heroics the Lions still found a way to send a scare through Tongala's camp, with Beau Clake slotting his third major of the game from a tight angle in the dying minutes to draw the margin back to seven points.
The Lions then streamed out of the middle from the centre bounce, but Brayden Nevett — among others including Alex Williams — was able to stand tall with a chase-down tackle and composed possession on almost the last line of defence to see off the danger.
"Braydo Nevett's another young bloke, it's his first year out of thirds and was raised through the footy club," Souter said.
"He was excellent especially in that last three or four minutes, he had two or three really big moments and you need those big moments to win finals."
Clarke, Will Barden, Reece Geary, Dylan Flanagan, Glenn Dominick, Jackson Gash and Sean Robinson impressed for the Lions in defeat.
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