Stretching back to March and finishing just short of October, Maitland's most successful top flight season ever included winning their first NPL premiership, making their first NPL grand final, making the FFA Cup round of 32 for the first time and qualifying for the NPL champions series semi-final.

"A terrific season, probably the best the club has had since they formed," Magpies skipper Carl Thornton said.

Being in the top flight, winning the premiership, making the grand final, making the FFA Cup. In the end it wasn't the fairy tale we were after but it was pretty close.

"At the end of the day there has to be loser in the game and unfortunately we were the loser twice (NPL grand final and NPL Champions semi-final).

"I thought first half we definitely held our own and we could have even had a few goals with the chances we had.

"They had a few chances in the first half from our mistakes, but I thought the first half was a pretty even contest.

"The second half they ran over the top of us, they had the better of the play but weren't too bad on the counter going forward and still created a few chances. But they were probably just a bit better today."

Running into the wind, Lions still dominated chances and finally cracked the Maitland defence in the 39th minute when Tommy Jarrard scored with a header from an Andy Thompson corner.

Shaun Carlos and Joe Duckworth were dangerous for Lions and both forced saves from Magpies keeper Matt Trott as well as shooting just wide in the first half.

Maitland started the second half brightly and they had cries for a penalty denied in the 65th minute.

Lions struck soon after as Mitchell Hore curled a strike inside the right post from the top of the penalty area in the 68th minute.

Thornton said he had thoroughly enjoyed the year and he was proud of everything the playing group, coaches, committee and volunteers had achieved together.

"They are a great bunch of boys to play with and go to training with and I think that has been part of our success everyone loves to turn up to training and fights for each other when we get out there on the pitch.

"It's been a pleasure to captain the boys this year and hopefully we can go on and do a bit better next year.

"We'll set goals and I think we will look at the double.

"The premiership will be hard to back up from as we will have a bit of a target on our backs next year. We flew under the radar for most of this year which helped us at the back end of the season."