THE Northern Mystics are back-to-back champions of the ANZ Premiership after a nail-biting one-goal win (54-53) over the Central Pulse in today’s grand final.

In an epic grand final momentum swapped several times in the game, and with the match ultimately going down to the final seconds of the final quarter.

Both sets of defences were on song early, as both teams had their first centre passes of the game broken.

That was a sign of how tight the match was to begin with, but eventually the Mystics did push ahead for an early lead. However that lead was at most only two goals, so the game remained tight. The Mystics kept their nose in front right through the quarter, but as the quarter came to a close they went on a bit of a run. Extending the margin out to five goals at the first change.

The Pulse maintained that buffer for much of the front half of the second term, as Grace Nweke’s strong positioning and accuracy made it hard for Kelly Jackson and Parris Mason to disrupt like Phoenix Karaka and Carys Stythe were up the other end.

However, off the back of a boost from a well timed intercept from Fa’amu Ioane, the Pulse stole momentum back and really took a chunk out of the deficit. It took them a while to completely eliminate the deficit, the Pulse eventually did with just under five minutes to go.

Eventually the Mystics did reestablish a small lead, and as such, took a two-goal lead into the main break.

Both sides traded blows early in the third term, but off the back of some strong defensive work the Pulse were able to level up the score again.  After the Pulse did level it up the teams were impossible to split for a vast majority of the quarter as proceedings went goal for goal.

Eventually the Mystics got two goals in a row thanks to the Pulse giving away an attacking contact, so the Mystics took a mere one goal lead into the final change.

The Mystics got four of the first five goals to give themselves a little bit of breathing space, but then things took a dramatic turn when Karaka copped a two minute suspension after a dangerous collision with Whitney Souness.

The Pulse made the most of the numbers advantage and completely eliminated the deficit.

As the intensity of the match rose the crowd’s volume rose with it, and the Pulse taking the lead with about half the quarter to go kept that volume growing. But like the champion side they are the Mystics were not going to lie down quietly and quickly eliminated the margin and got things back on centre pass. But as quickly as they did the Pulse regained their lead, but the match was far from done and neither side could rest on their laurels as the Mystics showed by levelling the score again.

Ultimately it came down to a goal from Nweke with a matter of seconds to go, breaking thousands of yellow and black hearts in the process.

CENTRAL PULSE           9 | 16 | 16 | 12 (53)
NORTHERN MYSTICS  15 | 13 | 15 | 12 (54)