Cheered on by a large crowd of supporters, who paid nearly $8000 at the gate, the Raiders produced one of their best performances of the season scoring 10 tries to Cobar’s four.

Both sides went into the match with ‘suspect’ players - Roosters prop forward Adam Betts was thrown in after a month-long hiatus with an ankle problem, while Macquarie’s Daniel Braithwaite also suffered an ankle injury late in the week.

Cobar was also without representative centre Shane Martin and was forced to play with a restructured backline.

The Raiders forwards however did the spadework and the backs finished off with some sparkling attack.

Captain Craig Rowarth praised the work of forwards Kinni Tanaulucava and Ashley Conn, but Hale Gordon, Zac Rennick and Chris Thompson weren’t too far behind.

In the backs David Peachey’s two tries were gems and he had a hand in probably four others while Country hooker Darren Jackson had a fairly quiet first half but opened up in the final 40 minutes.

Macquarie utility Peter Boon switched places with Peachey to keep Cobar guessing.

Sadly for Cobar their season could well have been decided in the first 10 minutes when firstly Damon Goolagong and then Daniel Braithwaite strolled over for tries and the home side was out to 10-0.

Peachey scored a double for 22-0 and it took 35 minutes for Cobar to get on the scoreboard when hooker Scott Willoughby crossed.

But then Chris Daley went over on half-time and at 38-6 the game had lost a lot of its interest - especially after Kinni and Adam McDermott added to the try-fest in the first eight minutes after the break.

A much more sombre-looking Roosters outfit returned in the second half knowing they would need more than luck to reel in Macquarie in front of an extremely vocal home crowd.

The Roosters showed glimmers of brilliance with tries off Alistair Travis and brothers Steve and Peter Ford but it was a case of too little too late as Macquarie ended another Roosters grand final berth.

Speaking after the match Raiders’ captain Rowarth said his team’s game plan against the Roosters was to play mistake-free football.

“I think in the main we managed to do just that and the results speak for itself,” Rowarth said.

Cobar captain-coach Peter Ford admitted the Raiders got the jump on the Roosters early and they never recovered.

“They were on the pulse from the start and we were just a yard behind them,” Ford said.

Macquarie Raiders 56 defeated Cobar Roosters 22 (Alistair Travis, Scott Willoughby, Steve Ford, Peter Ford tries; Peter Ford 3 goals).