The Tigers won the toss and kicked south in the opening quarter with the aid of a 3-goal breeze in sunny conditions but it was the Demons that made the early running.

Conor Ahern fired a useful handball to the running Matt Stone and he snapped truly with 4 minutes on the clock.

South continued to attack but good defence by BSR repelled their attacking moves and the tackling by the Tigers was a feature but with 11 minutes on the clock the locals broke through the defence.

Will Bradley delivered a great pass to Ash Smith who held onto an excellent mark and he converted to make it two goals to zip into the stiff breeze.

The Tigers finally broke the shackles at the 17-minute mark through Simon Hayes who got on the end of a handy pass and made no mistake.

Two minutes later an undisciplined piece of work by a Demon resulted in Craig Weckert being given a fifty-metre penalty, plus another fifty and he popped through the Tigers second major from point blank range.

The Tigers now had their tails up and with a minute gone in the time-on period Ben Pilkington held onto a top grab and sailed one home from long range.

Away they went again with Darren Longbottom showing his class firing an accurate pass to Ashley Burgess who didn’t let the veteran down kicking the Tigers fourth unanswered goal giving them a 13-point lead at quarter time.

QUARTER TIME: BSR 4.2 (26), SOUTH CLARE 2.1 (13)

The Demons now had the breeze at their backs but their forward movements were fairly ordinary in the early stages of the term allowing the Tigers defence to rebound the footy out of the danger zone.

The locals broke the shackles at the 8-minute mark through Andrew Vandeleur when he converted after accepting a pass from Matt Dare. They had a fair bit of the footy during the next five or six minutes but were very indirect and overused the ball causing mistakes to creep into their game.

South got the scoreboard ticking over again when Vandeleur delivered a long handball over to Stone in the goal-square and he popped through his second major for the half with 15 minutes on the clock.

BSR went forward a few times into the breeze but couldn’t penetrate the large opening before Longbottom showed his mates how to do it with a terrific dob from the boundary line that split the centre as the clock ticked into time-on.

Four minutes into the time-on period Josh Vandeleur who was having a big day out for South provided the second effort finishing with Stone nailing his third goal for the half.

A good performance by the Tigers to hold the Demons to three goals and score one themselves into the breeze had them 3 points up at the long break.

HALF TIME: BSR 5.6 (36), SOUTH CLARE 5.3 (33)

The Tigers came out firing after half-time and won the centre clearance getting the footy to Longbottom who nailed his second major with less than a minute on the clock.

Three minutes later Hayes delivered the footy to Burgess who marked and sent home his second six-pointer giving the visitors a handy little buffer with only 4 minutes gone in the third term.

The Demons got one back at the 8-minute mark through Andrew Vandeleur who made no mistake after accepting a short pass off the boot of Mitchell Reynolds but B.S.R. answered four minutes later.

Burgess was under enormous pressure but he managed to fire a short pass into Paul Meyer who converted from close range.

Approaching the time-on period Wayne Hutchinson who was getting plenty of the footy passed to Stone and he booted his fourth goal for the game but once again the Tigers responded.

Paul Jones provided the run out of defence, Longbottom hit him with an excellent handball and the Central Zone full-back drilled the footy between the big sticks to give the Tigers an 11-point lead entering the home straight.

THREE QUARTER TIME: BSR 9.6 (60), SOUTH CLARE 7.7 (49)

BSR went defensive at the start of the final term dropping extra numbers back to try and make the scoring opportunities difficult for South.

The first five minutes of the quarter was a scrappy affair with most of the play in the Demons half of the ground but the Tigers defence withstood the pressure as South continued to persist.

This style of play continued throughout the quarter with the Demons being forced to go wide many times as they tried to penetrate the BSR defensive tactics.

South did manage to get through the BSR defence and score on six occasions but the pressure that was being applied caused the locals to finish with 6 minor scores.

As the clock ticked into the time-on period the Tigers had a 5-point lead and they were hanging on for dear life but with 22 minutes on the clock that man Josh Berrett bobbed up.

Berrett got on the end of a pass from Dare and the league’s leading goal-kicker sailed it home from long range to give South a one-point lead.

The Demons registered another behind before the final siren blew and they had scraped home by 2 points.

FINAL SCORE: SOUTH CLARE 8.14 (62) d BSR 9.6 (60)