A late try was just enough for Temora to take the win needed to seal the Group Nine minor premiership.
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After Tumut's loss to Young on Saturday, and with two byes in the final two rounds, a win over Southcity at Harris Park on Sunday was all the Dragons required to secure top spot.
However they were forced to do it the hard way.
The Bulls went back in front with six minutes left in the clash after Travis Smith scored the first points of the second half.
However captain-coach Josh McCrone came to the fore making a break before setting up Hamish Starr to complete a 65-metre try to level the scores.
Starr slotted the conversion from in front to take a 22-20 lead.
While Southcity were able to regather the restart a mistake cost them one last chance to score.
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Temora weren't at their best but McCrone was thrilled with the resilience shown to come up with the goods and wrap up top spot.
"Our attack probably wasn't at its best but we came up with points when we needed them," McCrone said.
"We can react but we don't want to put ourselves in the position where we have to react."
It was a contrasting game with plenty of free-flowing football in the first half.
After four consecutive sets Temora were finally able to open the scoring through Starr but after a mistake off the restart Southcity struck right back after spreading it wide for Jesse Fitzhrenry to score.
The Bulls then capitalised on a Dragons mistake as Maleke Morris charged over to score.
Southcity were guilty of an error of their own coming back off their line and Temora were able to level things four minutes later through a James Stewart try to level things at 10-all.
A try to James Morgan off a Josh Siegwalt kick gave the Bulls the lead back with seven minutes left in the half before McCrone pounced on a ball that ricocheted off his legs to give Temora a 16-14 lead at the break.
However after going tit-for-tat in the first half, the second stanza was much more of a grind.
Southcity were able to stop a couple of good scoring opportunities, including holding up Billy Reardon with 12 minutes to play.
They looked on their way to consecutive victories when Smith scored off a repeat set.
However a missed tackle from Kyle McCarthy gave McCrone the opportunity to ice the game.
And he didn't miss.
The Dragons will now have to wait five weeks for their next game with successive byes to follow next weekend's general bye next week before and then the first week of the finals series off.
After exiting in straight sets in their first finals series in over a decade last year, McCrone hopes some of their tough wins this season will put them in good stead this time around.
"We're staying in contests, that's the thing I'm liking and that's what finals footy is all about," he said.
"We just have to be better at putting ourselves in the contest to start off things.
"We can't let any team get that sort of start and expect to be able to run them down.
"I'm happy we've been doing it for a couple of weeks now.
"We're getting better at the close games and our season could quite easily been very different as there's a lot of less than a try results.
"It's not lost on me and as good as the minor premiership is, there's still a lot of work to do."
However he hopes the side can learn from the win.
"Southcity are a good team and I think we underestimated them a bit at the start," McCrone said.
"It's not good enough and it's a couple of times we've done that this year."
With their poor points differential, the loss also ends any chance of Southcity sneaking into fifth spot.
Instead they have games against Tumut and Gundagai to try to add to their tally of two wins this season.
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