The club was running third in the competition before having competition points stripped knocked the Eels down into sixth place. 

However, the team fought back with a series of convincing wins in the final rounds to secure a berth in this weekend’s elimination finals against the Narooma Devils. 

Club secretary Dave Allen said the team was missing a half-dozen players for Sunday’s match with the Blue Heelers, but stayed in the contest through half-time when the score was 12-10. 

“Unfortunately we were missing a few and there was about six changes from the team we had announced to play,” Allen said. 

“We were missing some of the impact with Tyrone Thomas and Ian Smith unavailable, while Geeps couldn’t make it back down from Canberra.”

The Eels created a few opportunities for themselves on the day, but didn’t have the finishing power that they usually pack, while some errors proved costly at the other end. 

“Bombala was just a bit too good on the day,” Allen said. “But we should be back to full strength before the weekend.”

Despite the loss, he said the team had shown what it was capable of in recent matches.

The Bermagui-Cobargo combination has run as a bit of a dark horse this year and will be looking to upset some more fancied opponents facing elimination finals play. 

Unfortunately the club’s combined under 18s will be forced to forfeit on Saturday.