Railways give credit to Northampton but still gutted after extra time loss in GNFL GF amid scoreboard error

Railways experienced the highest of highs and lowest of lows during the Great Northern Football League grand final, after a scoreboard stuff-up left them believing they had won the game, which ended in a tie. After the final siren had blown, the scoreboard showed 9.6 (60) to 9.5 (59), with Railways winning by one point, and for seven minutes, they believed that. Players had taken their boots off, celebrating with friends and family, beers in hands and experiencing the joy of pulling out a last-minute, come-from-behind grand final win against the favoured Northampton Rams. The emotions of winning came crashing down after seeing the scoreboard change to a tie. Players needed to regroup and get back on the field for 10 minutes of extra time, but Northampton took control and won the game by 18 points. “Then the emotion of when you believe that you’ve won it. . . it’s really hard to stop and just cut those emotions off and then reassess,” Railways coach John Reynolds said. Reynolds said the team took nothing away from Northampton, and gave them full credit for winning the game. “It’s pretty hard to fathom now what exactly happened, from our perspective, we don’t take anything away from Northampton with the overall win,” he said. “Our guys have got together, and we’ve had a really good chat about that, there’s definitely nothing taken away from them for the win.” The Blues believed they had reached the apex, but found out from fans in the crowd yelling about what was unfolding. “We were not officially told, but sort of had an indication that something wasn’t right, it was really hard to be able to get guys and regroup,” Reynolds said. “There was just so many in the crowd yelling it out, but there was no one that actually told me. “I tried to put something together to be able to get the guys to focus, but when you look over and some guys are crying, guys are looking for their mouth guards and guys are trying to put their boots back on. . .I knew it was always going to be hard after that to regroup our guys.” The cup and medals had been brought out on to the field, but league officials quickly packed it up. Finding out from the crowd that the game had ended in a tie only added to Railways confusion, but they had to go back out and play an extra 10 minutes against Northampton. Railways would have approached the game differently in regulation if they knew it was about breaking a tie and not about defending the lead. Reynolds said it was easy to point fingers but the Rams would have approached the end differently as well. “We definitely would have played differently if we had the same scoreboard, there’s no doubt about it, but Northampton would have as well,” he said. “We can put some things in place to be able to change that, but from what both teams where looking at, at the time, we both played styles of football to try and get over the line.” Days later the loss is still weighing on the team, but Reynolds said it could be a learning opportunity for the league going forward. “The challenge for me is not challenging or changing the way Northampton won, it’s probably just, let’s come up with something to make sure that these things don’t happen again,” he said. “I think we just learn from the situation that just come about in which a lot of people weren’t ready for, I certainly wasn’t ready for it, hopefully some positives coming out of it, rather than people pointing fingers against each other.” The heartbreaking loss is something that won’t go away for the Blues, but Reynolds believes the team will come back next year stronger than ever. “The last three to four minutes of the game itself, we coach for those moments, we play for those moments, we trained for those moments and I think our guys gave it absolutely everything,” he said. “Even though it’s going to hurt deep down for a long time, I think they understand we stick together, we can all come back stronger.”