THANKS, CHAMP

It wasn’t the dream send-off he was hoping for, but Glenorchy great Jaye Bowden gave his all in his 244th and final TSL game for the club yesterday.

THE script was on track before a cruel plot twist crushed Jaye Bowden’s hopes of a fairytale TSL ending as North Hobart spoiled the celebrations at league headquarters.

In the last match of his glittering career for Glenorchy, Bowden threatened to sign off in spectacular fashion after he helped engineer a blistering start that saw the Pies open up a 25-point buffer at quarter time.

But the Demons — winless since Round 3 — turned the tables with nine of the next 11 goals before holding off one last gallant comeback to register a thrilling 10.10 (70) to 10.7 (67) win.

The result lifted the Demons off the bottom of the table while also keeping their faint finals hopes flickering, as Glenorchy was relegated to the doldrums.

All went to plan in the first 25 minutes, with Bowden kicking two goals in the opening stanza and having a hand in another two as the Pies started brightly.

However with Julian Dobosz (five goals) firing at the other end of the ground the hosts stormed back into contention in the second term, with Bowden booting his side’s only major.

North kicked the first four goals after the main break to complete a 38-point turnaround and, when skipper

Nathan McCulloch kicked truly two minutes into the last quarter, the margin edged out to 20 points.

Desperate to farewell Bowden on the right note Glenorchy refused to wilt, cutting the gap to two points deep into time-on through a pair of Matthew Joseph goals and another from Sam Rundle before time ran out to complete the perfect script.

“It is a bit of a strange feeling and something you can’t really prepare for, it only happens the once, bit weird but quite emotional,” Bowden said after the defeat.

“You think about all the things that have happened during your career and all the people in the room and how they’ve helped you. It felt a bit like a grand final, everyone was wishing you well and congratulating you. It is spring and other people are playing finals, it felt like we were in another granny.

“The result wasn’t great … we were really good in the first quarter but credit to North Hobart, they got the ascendancy back through the midfield.

“We did fight back late, back to a couple of points, so I went back to the goalsquare thinking it might be the fairytale but it wasn’t to be.

“We had a crack, you win some and lose some and I’ve won more than I’ve lost over my career so I can only be happy with that.”