Front-rowers Matt Hinton and Callan Gorman, back-rowers Andrew Bashford and Scott Batey, lock Kieran Hinton and hooker Phil Badior were outstanding in the opening stages and completely dominated their opposition.

The Cobras went into the game as underdogs, having been beaten by the Magpies on the three occasions they had met during the competition proper but were quietly confident they could turn the tables in the game that counted the most.

Gloucester opened the scoring after the ball was spilled from a clearing kick and the Magpies five eight found space out wide to cross in the corner for an early 4-0 lead.

Clarro quickly regrouped and after regaining possession soon after the resumption were able to mount sustained attacking pressure and Badior took full advantage of the momentum when he darted out of dummy half from 30 metres out and stepped beautifully around the fullback to score the opening try for the Cobras next to the posts to give himself an easy conversion and the side a 6-4 lead.

With 15 minutes gone in the game Clarro were again on the attack and after some clever ball movement close to the Magpies line, Matt Hinton slipped a lovely ball as he was going to ground that found Middleton backing up to score under the posts and increase the lead to 12-4.

At the halfway mark in the first half Clarro gave Gloucester a repeat set of tackles from which they made full use of to eventually crash over again to close the margin to 12-10, but again the Cobras quickly composed themselves and just five minutes later Hinton delivered another dream ball to Batey as he charged through a small gap to score.

The successful conversion now had the Cobras in front 18-10. It was left to the last minute of the first half for the play which would leave the Cobras in a dominant position.

It also reassured Cobra fans of the value five eight Ben Trappel is to the Cobras team.

With the awareness of the Gloucester fullback having to make the previous tackle, Trappel kicked long downfield to win the race to a bouncing ball and regather to score a brilliant try and stretch to margin to 22-10 at the break.  

With steady and at times heavy rain beginning to fall during the interval, conditions during the second half deteriorated to some extent with much more emphasis placed on ball security during the tackle and play the ball.

Slippery as the conditions were the intensity probably lifted and the defensive exchanges were elevated to another level.

Johnson and Foot were exceptional in their ability to shut down opposition raids and when given the opportunity, put the Cobras on roll with damaging runs.

Young wingers Geddes and Lewis showed they are capable on the big stage by assisting their centres at every opportunity.

It wasn’t until the last 12 minutes that the game took a major turn.

With Clarro seemingly well in control of the situation and defending every raid that had been thrown at them, they committed one of the worst crimes in footy by giving away a penalty for back chatting whilst in possession.

On the final tackle of the next set the Gloucester centre leapt high above the Clarro defenders to pluck a well placed crossfield kick out of the air to score and put them within a converted try of the Cobras with a scoreline of 22-16.

Things got even more interesting when the Magpies kicked a 40-20 at the end of the resuming set and then scored in the corner at the end of the next to close the gap to 22-20.

There was a sigh of relief from Clarro players and fans as the conversion attempt was waved away, but certainly set up for an extremely exciting last seven minutes of the game.

Clarro rallied with punishing defense from the restart and forced an error.

From the recommencing scrum Johnson chased through the ball which had ricochet off his legs into the in-goal which he pounced on to score.

Somewhat lucky but with only two minutes left in the game, no one from Clarence Town really cared how pretty the try looked but the reality was that it assured them of victory and a chance to continue their season with a well deserved 28-20 win. 

The Cobras are hopeful of keeping the local flag flying next week when they take on the Hinton Hornets at the same time of Saturday 11.40am.