THE joy on Queanbeyan Blues' head coach Simon Woolford's face after his side's 24-20 extra time grand final win over the Goulburn Workers Bulldogs at Seiffert Oval last Sunday was priceless.
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Not having won a premiership of any kind since playing for his home club the Young Cherry Pickers in the under 17s division 21 years ago, the 262-game NRL veteran was finally able to let the monkey off his back, and celebrate after getting his hands on the Canberra Raiders Cup trophy.
He completed the job the east-Queanbeyan club had recruited him to do, and now hopes to extend his current two-year contract at the club.
But given all he has endured, he has every right to be over the moon with his achievement.
He debuted for the Canberra Raiders in the NRL in 1995, one year after that club's last premiership, and despite only losing two games that year, suffered a shock loss to the Canterbury Bulldogs in the preliminary finals.
A similar scenario occurred in 1997, and he went on to play in six finals series' for the Raiders, before playing with the St George Illawarra Dragons in 2007 and 2008 and playing in one finals series.
He amassed 262 NRL matches, but still, not a single premiership.
His Blues lost just two matches in the regular season last year, and he was still taken down in the grand final.
But this year is finally a different story.
"There was a lot of pressure, and it's just such a relief to let it go," Woolford said after his men's triumph last Sunday.
"We finished as minor premiers last season and lost the grand final, and we finished as minor premiers again this season and were expected to win."
While Woolford was over the moon to finally break the Blues' six year premiership drought, he said his men had to show great character to get over the line in the end, after going into 10 minutes of extra time with the scores locked at 20-all after 80 minutes.
He added some controversial refereeing decisions made life harder for them.
"We got stitched up today on the end of a 13-3 penalty count...every obstacle the referee could have put in front of us today they did," Woolford said.
"But I said to the boys at half time 'the penalty count is 8-2; are we going to let the referees ruin a good day for us, or are we going to get on with it?'."
"Things didn't get better for us in the second half, but with that penalty count, and to get away with a win, that just tells you what sort of group this group is."
The Blues struggled to fill holes in their defence, and for territory, for much of the game, but fired in the last 20 minutes to run line breaks and swing momentum back
their way, which ultimately won them the game.
Winger and competition top try-scorer Tom Ruedinger finished with a crucial double, while Leu Saipani scored the match winner in extra time.
Woolford said reverting back to simple game plays allowed them to put on points.
"We dug in, we worked our bums off coming out of our own end, and we were able to find some spaces when the opportunities were presented," he said.
The Blues celebrated their win at the Queanbeyan Racing Club on Monday, and will now enjoy a three-month off-season.
