THE fight for fifth spot in the Bendigo Football-Netball League is set to go down to the wire after Gisborne’s enthralling win over Golden Square on Saturday.

In a season-on-the-line encounter, Gisborne bravely held on for the last 10 minutes as Golden Square pressed hard, but didn’t capitalise on its chances.

Less than a kick separated the two sides in a hard-fought battle of the Bulldogs as Gisborne triumphed 7.16 (58) to 7.13 (55).

The two sides are now level on 40 points apiece, with Golden Square’s percentage advantage of 149 to 131 all that’s now keeping the perennial finalists in the top five.

“We knew a month ago we needed to win our last four games to be a finals chance and we’ve won three of them,” Gisborne coach Clinton Young said.

“All we can control from here is recovering well after today, training well and playing our best footy next week and what will be will be.”

Gisborne has a home game against South Bendigo in round 18, while Golden Square will make the challenging trip to Kyneton, which will be playing to hold onto its position in the top three in what’s a high stakes game for both teams at the Kyneton Showgrounds to close out the home and away season.

As well as Gisborne, other round 17 winners on Saturday were the top four teams: Strathfieldsaye, Eaglehawk, Kyneton and Sandhurst.

It was a rare round in the BFNL over recent years where there were no margins of more than 10 goals.

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