Newcastle Hold Out Valiant Canberra

First Semi Final Result: Newcastle 12 d Canberra 10 at Newcastle

Newcastle has secured their second straight Grand Final berth, and the chance to win consecutive ARTTSL Premierships, with a tough 12-10 win over Canberra.

Canberra looked poised and hungry, and Newcastle made the surprise decision to receive first after winning the toss, seemingly to distract Newcastle captain and receiver big Roscoe Roosevelt (the Big Mal of Rebound Table Tennis), who has been in damaging form throughout the finals series.

The tactic appeared to backfire though as Roosevelt came out firing when Newcastle did serve, and put away four clean winners to put Canberra ahead 6-4 at half time.

The match appeared to be heading for a boil-over as Canberra went ahead 9-7, only for Newcastle to claw back to 10-all, forcing the match into extra time.

Newcastle finally seemed to click into top gear, taking the next two points to seal the match 12-10.

Newcastle will play the winner of tomorrow night's match between Sydney and the Gold Coast in next Sunday's Grand Final. If Sydney win, the Grand Final will take place in Sydney (at the Sydney Stadium of Football given that Stadium Australia is being used for the NRL Grand Final).

If the Gold Coast win, the Grand Final will move to Newcastle. This would set up an enticing re-match of last year's Grand Final, in which the then Gold Coast-Tweed went down 11-8 in Newcastle. The following day the Tweed Heads side of the joint venture sensationally withdrew to defect to the National HyperBall League, and was subsequently excluded from this year's ARTTSL competition when HyperBall collapsed.

Second ARTTSL Semi Final: Sydney vs Gold Coast (at Sydney)