By MARK CASHMAN

It was 3-all at halftime, 9-all at full-time and in the end it took extra time and all up 100 minutes for Eastwood to qualify for their first Shute Shield grand final since 2015 at a wind and rain swept Pittwater Rugby park on Sunday.

The Woodies beat Northern Suburbs 12-9 in a tense semi-final clash at Narrabeen to make their way through to the 2020 premiership decider against Gordon.

In terms of skills and sweeping movements that featured the first time these two teams clashed a little over a month ago, this game didn’t rise to any great heights, but it was off the scale in the tension and endeavour both these sides brought to the table.

Earlier in the day I had an exchange of texts with Highlanders coach Darren Coleman about his team’s win the previous day and his words were almost Nostradamus-like.

“Looking forward to watching Norths and Woods bash the hell out of each other in an over time thriller with lots of red cards,” Coleman jokingly said.

He was right about the overtime thriller and each of these teams bashing the hell out of each other but light on the cards.

Once again it was the keen game management skills of the Woodies favourite red head, Tane Edmed, who was able to make sure that his side was in the right part of the field at the right time.

On top of all that he was able to kick the penalty goals when the opportunity bobbed up.

But as we all know a good performance from a flyhalf is only as good as the time and space that he is given and the Woods had a number of special heroes on that front.

Skipper Pat Sio rumbled hard all day getting his side close or over the advantage on a day where every centimetres of ground counted.

Tim Anstee got some good line out ball on a difficult day while Matt Gonzalez knew where and when the possession he did get should be dished out to his No.10.

Fullback Chris Bell was grand ally for Edmed, coming in and shouldering a lot of the playmaking duties while his kicking game got his side out of a lot of threatening situations.

“It was just a war of attrition between two really good teams that wanted to play in a grand final,” Woods coach Ben Batger said.

“It won’t go down as football classic but anyone there will tell you it was as tense of a game as you’ll see.

“Due to the conditions we had to put away the fancy stuff so it then became about playing smart.

“In attack you had to try and control field position while in defence you had to be disciplined.

“We weren’t as good as last week but I thought our game controllers did a good job of not playing in our own half while in defence our skipper Pat Sio led the way constantly getting off the line.”

Norths did have their chances to ice the game with Angus Sinclair having a penalty goal attempt just before full-time and also during extra time.

But the wind that boomed in from the south west at Rat Park along with the sleeting rain was just too much to overcome and both attempts were pretty much on target but fell short.

“I probably knew I didn’t have the legs for the last one into the wind but I thought it was worth a shot. Unfortunately didn’t get it,” Sinclair told Lou Ransome on Channel Seven after the game.

“It was a tough old game of rugby and one for the purists but credit to Eastwood they probably just played a bit smarter.

“It could have gone either way. We had our chances, they had theirs and they took them.”

Norths at times had reason to bitch about the way some of the 50-50 calls went throughout the afternoon but they preferred to reflect on a season where they made considerable progress under a new coaching group.

Earl Va’a did a superb job with the cattle at the club and in Zak Beer and Sape Misa there is lots of smarts and now some genuine experience.

EASTWOOD 12 (Tane Edmed 4 pen goals) d NORTHERN SUBURBS 9 (Angus Sinclair 3 pen goals) in extra time at Pittwater Rugby Park.

IMAGE: SERGE GONZALEZ / EASTWOOD RUGBY