Clearly seething with their 2014 Central West Rugby campaign gone, the Bulldogs coaching staff were involved in a heated exchange with referee Charlie Simmons after the match.

The lop-sided penalty count also resulted in Dogs forwards Oliver Crowe and Alister Fryer receiving yellow cards for repeat infringements.

Down to 14 men twice in a do-or-die clash, Bathurst mentor Scott Johnston said it was a tough afternoon for his side.

He said the penalty count made it “very hard”.

“And then you put that in to the possession they had, it’s hard to stay competitive, but I thought we were right in the game till the very end.

“We stayed in the game with our defence. It takes credit for the boys to keep backing up when pretty much every ruck there was a penalty blown or some sort of infringement.”

The nine-point Emus victory sets up a mouth-watering preliminary final clash with last year’s champions Orange City at Orange’s Pride Park on Saturday. 

The winner will progress through to the decider in a fortnight at Dubbo’s No.1 Oval against minor premiers Kangaroos.

The winning result yesterday was Emus’ first finals victory in over four years – a monkey that coach Andrew Logan was desperate to remove from his side’s back.

“Absolutely. We just saw today what finals footy is about – just getting a result no matter what,” Logan said.

“They’re always very physical and it’s a tough outing against the Dogs. 

“They’re up off the line, they carry hard, they work hard in the ruck and don’t give you anything for free.”

Logan credited his side’s ability to place the visitors under press-ure at the ruck as one of the reasons his side was awarded 23 penalties in 80 minutes – or one roughly every four minutes.

“They appear to be not too happy with the way things have played out,” he said.

“But I think we put them under pressure enough that they had to make some 50-50 plays on the ball and some of those didn’t pay off, and again that’s finals rugby.”

Bathurst went toe-to-toe with the Emus for the duration of a physical 80 minutes, a feat made significantly tougher when Alex Weal was forced to leave the field after being knocked-out cold in a heavy collision 20 minutes in.

The score switched for much of the first period, but ended in a 12-10 advantage to the Bulldogs thanks largely to a cracking try to Phil Tonkin on the verge of halftime.

But, by and large, the second stanza belonged to the Emus.

The Bathurst pack was enormous for the visiting Bulldogs, while Emus’ best were Tim Alison and a damaging Rob Thorburn.

ORANGE EMUS 28 (Carter Hirini 2, Adam Perri tries; Nigel Staniforth 2 conv; Nigel Staniforth 3 pen goals) defeated Bath-urst Bulldogs 19 (Jack Roberson 2, Phil Tonkin tries; Stephen Locke 2 conv).