It capped a remarkable fight back for the Pirates and continued a run of golden form that is closing the gap on the competition leaders, including the front-running Bulls.

With six minutes to go the Taree City Bulls had surged to a comfortable 30-18 lead and the game looked all over.

But the tenacious character of the Pirates over the last few weeks came to the fore yet again. The Bulls were caught on the back foot and two clever tries to coach Matt Everitt had the scores locked at 30 all.

With just one minute on the clock half Berry kicked a towering field goal from near halfway for a memorable 31-30 win. They scored six tries to five, with only three converted.

The Pirates have now won four straight and their resurgence has been a highlight of the Group Three season. With the top five teams grouped closely together on the table, they have given themselves a big chance of being in the semi finals at the end.

For Old Bar again the combination of halves Berry and Everitt was outstanding giving their runners ample opportunities to make long inroads into the opposition area. Nathaniel Pito, Josh Pearsall and Jade Clarke were all impresssive out wide.

For most of the game the smaller Pirate forwards were not daunted by their larger counterparts and none better than Jono Tickle, Ashley Curry and Jake Wheeler. The diminutive hooker Jayden Lewis was also a standout with his probing runs from dummy half.

While it was a real team performance, but club officials would like to see the Pirates reduce their mistakes to a minimum if they are going to continue to match the other clubs.

The Bulls have a very powerful forward pack and when allowed to dominate built the platform for their speedy backs to capitalise on the broken defence. None were better than evergreen Doug Ferguson and Buddy King from the bench.

Josh Northam showed what a talented player he is with strong running and deft passes to his support players.

Daniel Slater at five-eighth was a continual problem for the Old Bar defence because he is so quick off the mark. He did score a long range try in the second half working off a searching cross field run by the speedy Clint Walker.

Two keys to the win for Old Bar were taming the bigger Bulls pack and keeping Clint Walker tryless. The Pirates have discovered their own speedster in Jade Clarke and near the end of the first half he was able to ankle tap Walker in full flight.

The Pirates dominated the early part of the first half with tries to Ash Currey who charged through a gaping hole created by Matt Everitt.

Not long after he was denied another deemed to be a double movement. He is enjoying playing wider and running off the clever passing of his coach.

A great cut out pass from Berry had Jade Clarke over wide out and the Pirates had jumped to a 10-0 lead.

But with a tiring defence the Bulls surged back with Josh Northam showing great strength to score near the posts followed soon after by Jae Simon crossing with little trouble. Right on the half time break Doug Ferguson crashed over and the Bulls would have been very happy with themselves leading 18-10.

THE Pirates needed to be the first to score in the second half and after play had seesawed from one end to the other Nathan Berry scampered over.

Then came the classic speed of Clint Walker onto the flying Daniel Slater who gave the defence no chance and again the Bulls were comfortably ahead by 10 points.

The Pirates kept bouncing back and another long Berry pass found its mark for Josh Pearsall to score. A couple of penalties gave Taree City good field position and a superb off load from Josh Northam found Trae Clarke who had an easy passage to the line.

The Bulls would have been well satisfied with their afternoon’s work. But then came the exciting finale to a really good game of rugby league, with some patrons leaving early missing the finish of the year.

Unfortunately for the Bulls Daniel Dumas was unable to play following an injury from the Group Three trip to Forbes.

He has a very good team under his charge and they will be right in the firing line come the end of the season.

Everitt was delighted with his players and their ability to come back from what appears to be a game loss. The Pirates need to be a little more patient in attack thereby reducing mistakes.

There was a very good crowd to witness a great game. Special congratulations to Doug Ferguson for his initiative with the colourful Bulls playing strip and raising money for cancer research.