Hawks taking supporters on a HDFNL thrill ride after another last-gasp win

The Hawks pipped Elmore by the barest of margins, with Harry Whittle kicking his first goal of the season just when it was needed most with his side trailing by five points inside the final minute.

Huntly prevailed 11.11 (77) to 11.10 (76) at Elmore, with the one-point win coming a week after the Hawks also kicked the last goal of the match to beat the previously undefeated North Bendigo by five points.

Last year's wooden-spooners, the Hawks are now 3-1 in their past four games and just percentage outside the top five under new coach Hamish Morcom.

Those three wins in their past four outings equal the total amount of games the Hawks won across both the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

"It was an absolute grind today... that's the best way to describe it," Morcom said.

"We were down to two on the bench in the last quarter, so we had to dig deep.

"We definitely didn't play our best footy and that's credit to Elmore, which was strong at the contest and fought really hard all day with some great inside mids.

"A win like today definitely helps to build resilience and the boys should take confidence that in these tight games we can grind it out."

Whittle's match-winning goal in what was a play that started with an intercept mark in the back half from team-mate Steve Kairn proved to be the final kick of the game.

"It was a super piece of play from Harry, who basically shrugged off three players in the forward line and finished his work with a nice goal from about 40m," Morcom said.

From the resulting centre ball-up Morcom was awarded a free kick for being held without the ball and the siren sounded seconds later.

As well as Whittle's heroics in the final seconds, one of the other highlights in the final quarter for the Hawks was a goal kicked by first-gamer Drew Costigan.

"Drew has been playing really well in the under-18s, so we gave him an opportunity today and he kicked a really clutch goal into the wind from about 40m out in the last quarter," Morcom said.

"It was against the flow fairly early in the first quarter, so that was a big moment for him."

The best players for the Hawks were led by Ben Daley.

"Ben has played the majority of the past two weeks in the midfield and in the second half today we felt he negated Nathan Kay after he had a really effective first half," Morcom said.

Gun forward/mid Whittle and Harrison Campbell on a wing also featured among the best, while in his return from a three-game suspension Flynn Campbell kicked two goals, as did Jacob Greenwood.

While the Bloods fell agonisingly short of the first win of their 150^th anniversary season it was the first time for the year they have finished within eight goals of an opponent.

Defender Rhys Holmberg, coach Nathan Kay and ruckman Daniel Russell headed the best players for the Bloods, while vice-captain James Harney was their leading goalkicker with three.

Colbinabbin has climbed back into the top five after inflicting a 61-point hiding at home on Lockington-Bamawm United.

After a competitive first half in which the Grasshoppers led by four points, it was all one-way traffic after the main break.

The Grasshoppers outscored the Cats 12 goals to three in the second half on the way to an 18.11 (119) to 8.10 (58) victory - their biggest win over LBU since 2017.

"It was a pleasing day today and just a really good all round effort over four quarters," Colbinabbin coach Jed Brain said.

"We've been fairly disappointed with our third quarters over the past few weeks, so we really worked on some scenarios around that during the week and put it into practice today."

The Grasshoppers blew the game wide open with their 7.6 to 1.2 third quarter.

Midfielders Charlie Ryan and Jude Ryan were strong contributors for the Grasshoppers, as were two of their veterans in former coaches Julian Bull in the ruck and the wily Nick Knight (two goals).

And young forward Alex Carr continues to provide a strong target in attack kicking four goals to be among five multiple goalkickers along with Jordan Wilson (three), Knight, Will Lowe (two) and Angus Martin (two).

"Alex either marks it or brings it to ground... I reckon he would have flown for 15 marks today, marked half of them and brought the other half to the ground for our small forwards, which is how we kicked a lot of our goals," Brain said.

It was a milestone day for Grasshoppers' skipper Lowe playing his 100^th senior game for the club.

"It was great to get the win for Will; he's Colbo through and through, so it was a special day for him," Brain said.

Saturday was the third loss of the season by more than 10 goals for the Cats, who now sit above only the winless Elmore on the ladder.

Thomas Leech and Taylor Butler (two goals) were named the two best for the Cats, who like the Grasshoppers are having their depth severely tested.

North Bendigo again proved just what a notoriously difficult venue Atkins Street is for opposing teams to win at as the Bulldogs defeated Mount Pleasant by 12 points.

It was a bounceback victory by the Bulldogs following last week's shock upset at the hands of Huntly, with North Bendigo prevailing 11.10 (76) to 9.10 (64).

"We really honed in on our ball movement and defensive pressure this week and it was one of those games today where we had to scrap it out," said assistant Daniel Francis, who coached the Bulldogs in the absence of Rob Bennett.

"We didn't have it all our way and Mounts put up a really good fight, but we fought our way to a win, which was really pleasing."

Francis was full of praise for his defence led by Jordan Quirk, who had the big job on Ben Bisset (two goals), Will Gilmore and Hamish McCartney, while Ryan Hartley and Nick Waterson were prominent midfielders.

The lively Mitch Rovers kicked four of Mount Pleasant's nine goals, while Blues' ruckman Chris Down was awarded the Gus Roulston Cup for best on ground.

The reigning premier Blues dropped from fifth to seventh with the loss and are now 2-4.

"There's no doubting we were better for longer today; they got a bit of a run-on at one stage, which we were able to stop and that was a positive," Blues coach Cameron Carter said.

"We had a couple of chances in that last quarter that just didn't quite go our way and North did what they should do in that situation to get numbers back and make it hard for us to score late."

Ladder-leading White Hills conceded just two goals in its 55-point win over Leitchville-Gunbower.

The Demons, playing without gun ruckman Callum Crisp, won 12.6 (78) to 2.11 (23) at Gunbower.

Included in White Hills' 12 goals were kicking seven against the breeze across the second and fourth quarters, while the Demons' best player was Tom Brereton off half-back.

Co-coach Kaiden Antonowicz (three), Liam Bartels (two), James Davies (two), Mitch Dole (two) and Jake Miller (two) were all multiple goalkickers for the Demons.

"We set a tone from the start and probably played better footy against the breeze, which was quite strong," Antonwicz said.

"Our backline is playing really good footy at the moment; they are defending really well, but also creating for us as well, which is very important."

Joel Donehue and Max Hagan kicked the only two goals for the Bombers, who were unable to back up from their impressive win over Heathcote the previous week.