The Box Hill Hawks have been an important outlet for Hawthorn's triple premiership success – but this season appears likely to play a very little part.
Footscray snatched the points in the dying minutes against the Hawks to win by five-points and keep their top four hopes alive at Whitten Oval on Saturday, while all but ending the Hawks' season.
Box Hill Hawks coach Marco Bello was disappointed with the loss to the Bulldogs.Credit: Getty Images
Whether it was Jonathan Simpkin, who earned a call-up to the 2013 premiership victory, after playing a week earlier in the VFL flag for Box Hill, or Cyril Rioli being given a chance to prove his fitness for the 2014 premiership win in the VFL grand final against Footscray – or Ben McEvoy's opportunity to impress in last year's VFL finals series, Box Hill have been a sounding board for Hawthorn's success.
That Box Hill are likely to now miss the VFL finals for the first time in those premiership years, means that it will be a "new challenge" according to Hawks development coach Marco Bello, who has steered the Hawks to back to back VFL grand finals.
"It's proven … it allowed guys to get back to proving that they were fit enough to play in the AFL side (in the finals)," Bello said
"That's going to be a new challenge. We're still hopeful that the next month of footy might change fortunes, but obviously it's highly unlikely. We're going to fight it out and hope that we can prolong our season as much as we can to give the boys up top more opportunity," he said.
Box Hill have had their fair share of close losses. A win against the Dogs would have put them a game outside the top eight, given Essendon had the bye.
Instead, they are two games outside the top eight, with four matches to play. Their slide from grand finalist over the past three seasons is one of the surprising elements of this season.
"I could look back at about six games now that we've lost under 16 points, all the way back to April or May against Werribee when you lost that one by five points," Bello said.
"We've lost four games under a goal. We'll be kicking ourselves. At the end of them, you've got to be good enough to win them. I guess we haven't been good enough for long enough."
This was a match they should never have let go. They were in full control at the last change with a 31-point lead. That came on the back of three unanswered goals for the term from Sam Switkowski – who was outstanding – David Mirra and Alex Woodward.
Liam Nash kicked a long-range goal 12 minutes into the final term to kick-start a comeback.
Bailey Dale, with a goal on the run, reduced the deficit to 19-points soon after.
The goals continued to come through Mitch Hannan and Hugh Wales – and at the 16-minute mark – it was back to just seven points.
After successive behinds, the Bulldogs kept pushing, and when skipper Jordan Russell kicked truly, they had hit the lead for the first time in the match.
Russell finished with 34 touches for the match. Arguably, his importance to the club has never been greater, in a young, developing squad.
The Bulldogs clung to the win in the dying seconds. It would have been fitting for Lukas Webb, who was best on ground with 37 disposals, to cap the win off with a goal after the siren, but he missed.
There was also promising signs with Nathan Hrovat getting through unscathed, while the team blooded more developing youngsters in the lead-up to finals.
Hrovat was the Bulldogs' only multiple goalscorer – with two goals in two minutes – which were the teams' opening two goals of the match in the first term. Hrovat is likely to be an important inclusion for the senior team in their run to the finals, after recovering well from an ankle injury and playing well in his return two matches in the VFL.
With an injury-ravaged AFL affiliate, this was a brave and well-deserved victory for the Dogs, albeit they led for the first time in the match at the 25-minute mark of the final term.
After dropping last week's match by a goal to the Northern Blues, this was a comeback to savour and – in the interim – it saved their season.
Another loss would have meant they would be in danger of dropping outside the top eight.
In other matches, Collingwood won their ninth consecutive victory with a 50-point win over Geelong, to consolidate their spot on the ladder behind Williamstown and Casey.
Casey thrashed Coburg by 78-points with Ben Kennedy and Jack Grimes each having 39 disposals, while Clayton Oliver had 26 touches. Jack Trengove, too, was influential with 30 disposals, along with Vic Michie (30 disposals and two goals).
Port Melbourne got over the line against North Ballarat by 13 points and Richmond defeated Frankston by 31-points.
VFL Sunday
Werribee v Northern Blues, Avalon Airport Oval, 11.40am
Sandringham v Williamstown, Trevor Barker Beach Oval, 2pm