Heath Thiele, Luke Slater, Tyler Duck, Liam Byrne top performers in AFL grand final
In a nailbiting grand final, North Mackay secured its third consecutive premiership. Find out the best players on the day.
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North Mackay Saints held on against a fast-finishing Magpies outfit to complete a three-peat in AFL Mackay’s premier division.
The perennial contenders would not go unchallenged, with Mackay Magpies using seemingly fresher legs and home-ground advantage to come from 19 points down with less than ten minutes in the last quarter.
Mackay could not complete the comeback, with the Saints taking the premiership in a season where they claimed victory in 17 of 18 games with an average winning margin of 65 points.
There were grand final heroics on both sides of the contest, and these were the best on the day.
Heath Thiele – Mackay Magpies
The ball-winning midfielder has joined an exclusive group with Nathan Buckley after winning best-on-ground honours in a losing grand final Magpies side.
Thiele’s ability to extract the ball from the contest and make sharp decisions under pressure gave Mackay an early lift in the first quarter while other players were affected by nerves.
He was a key contributor in the last quarter, involved in numerous scoring links as his team almost completed the miracle comeback.
Luke Slater – North Mackay Saints
Arguably the Saints’ most important player, Slater had a day out across the half back.
His read on the ball in flight is arguably the best in Mackay’s competition, allowing him to drift off his man and take intercept marks.
Slater’s accuracy with the boot then allows the Saints to propel quickly from defence, often catapulting his side into scoring positions.
He was unlucky not to be awarded the best-on-ground medal.
Liam Byrne/Tyler Duck – North Mackay Saints
The Saints went into the grand final with a one-two punch in the ruck department, which is a combination that has worked all season.
Byrne and Duck worked in tandem to render Nick Thiele uninfluential, as the pair worked up and down the ground to exhaust the Magpies ruck.
Byrne kicked a goal himself and Duck set up a couple to add extra strings to their bows, with Thiele unable to run with them all day.
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Originally published as Heath Thiele, Luke Slater, Tyler Duck, Liam Byrne top performers in AFL grand final
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