DREW Petrie felt he "owed" his teammates and North Melbourne supporters the two match-winning goals he kicked in the dying minutes of Saturday night's epic elimination final win over Essendon.
The Kangaroos' vice-captain had been beating himself up during the match after a quiet three-disposal first half and for conceding a goal to Patrick Ryder that gave Essendon a one-point lead at the 18-minute mark of the last quarter.
But a tap on the backside and a few words of encouragement from midfielder Ben Cunnington helped the big Kangaroos forward seize his moment when it arrived six minutes later.
Petrie snapped a brilliant goal around his body from 30m and then sealed North's first finals win since 2007 with an audacious checkside a minute later.
"I owed the boys and I owed our supporters because I hadn't had a very good first half," Petrie told AFL.com.au.
"Ben Cunnington came up and gave me a big pat on the backside after Ryder kicked that goal.
"I was pretty down on myself but he got me going and said there was still time for us all to have an impact and win the game.
"I was just fortunate to get a couple of shots on goal and it went through."
Petrie said the checkside goal was the result of a split-second decision.
"I was looking to draw 'Wellsy' (Daniel Wells) in and give it to him, let him do that tricky kind of stuff," he said.
"I didn't have time to straighten and kick a drop punt so it worked and it came off.
"I might have looked like a bit of a fool if it went out on the full or something."
The win was only Petrie's second taste of a finals triumph in his 267-game career and came after the Bombers led by 33 points early in the third quarter.
"It's still a bit surreal. The situation we were in meant that I suppose we could have been excused for rolling over," Petrie said.
"But the fight the boys showed in that second half … we knew that our last quarters we were second in the comp in running over sides so we had to draw on that.
"I didn't think it was done and dusted because we hadn't played our best footy."
The Roos re-jigged their forward structure after only scoring a solitary point from 13 inside 50s in the second term.
Petrie stayed closer to home, while emerging big man Ben Brown led hard up the ground and booted three goals in seven minutes to spark the Roos.
"He stood up for us tonight. He was brilliant. He's been really good the last six weeks for us," Petrie said.
"He's a really honest competitor. There's no tricks to his game, there was nothing special that he did tonight he just worked really hard, he created some space off his opponent."
North now faces a semi-final showdown with Geelong on Friday night. The Cats are the only top-five side the Roos have failed to beat this season.
"They've beaten us twice this year, I think second quarters in both of those games they've kicked five and six goals," Petrie said.
"You don't want to have to rely on big fightbacks to win these finals games because they're not going to happen too often.
"They're still a very damaging side and they will be very frustrated after their effort Friday night so it will be on here at the 'G on Friday night again."
