Belief sees Hawks through to grand final showdown

BELIEF and trust are wonderful things in football, and Eaglehawk co-coach Travis Matheson says his side has plenty of both heading into this Saturday’s BFNL grand final showdown against Sandhurst at the QEO.

The Hawks, who will be playing in their first grand final since losing to Strathfieldsaye by 14 points in 2019, are embracing the challenge of being back in the big dance following a 33-point win over Gisborne in last weekend’s preliminary final.

While they have yet to beat the Dragons in three attempts this season – the latest a 61-point defeat in the second semi-final a fortnight ago – Matheson feels his side is thriving on the finals atmosphere and is ready to take the challenge right up to the minor premiers.

“I spoke to the boys at the start of the final series about enjoying the little wins along the way,” he said.

“Another win against Gissy on the weekend – the boys have really enjoyed those and built that feeling.

“We’ll go in this weekend with the belief we can win it, but knowing we will have to play really well.

“(Sandhurst) are the benchmark – star-studded and very well drilled and play a really good brand of footy.

“Fall asleep for even a little bit against them, it’s game over.”

With their defence more than capable of stifling the Dragons’ array of offensive weapons, the obvious challenge for the Hawks will be conjuring a winning score.

They scored just 34 points in the semi-final defeat, and 48 and 52 in 33-point and 19-point losses during the home and away season.

Matheson pinpointed forward-half efficiency as a must for the Hawks.

“We have to find a way to score. Defensively each time we played them we have been pretty good, but we just haven’t been able to convert that into scoreboard pressure,” he said.

“And we have to find that scoreboard pressure early in the game.

“We’ve had looks at it, but against a really good side like Sandhurst, you have to take your chances and if you don’t they make you pay.

 

“We’ll have to take every chance we get.”

Matheson praised the Hawks’ ability to weather the storm against a brave Gisborne last weekend to win their way into the premiership decider.

Down at half-time, the Hawks clung to a seven-point lead at three-quarter time, before finishing full of running.

As a consequence they will carry plenty of momentum into the big dance.

“Looking at the scores in the prelims the last five or six years, it (the winning margin) is about five or six points on average at the end of the game,” Matheson said.

“I kept telling the boys to do your time and be patients and don’t be in a rush to get there.

That paid off in the last quarter when we were able to open them up.

“We spoke about it after the game, we really deserve to be in the grand final.

“Now we are, we are in it to win it.”

Grand final week got off to the best possible start for the Hawks with class midfielder Billy Evans taking out the Michelsen Medal on Sunday.

He became the eighth Hawks player to win the league’s top individual honour in the last 25 years, following on from Reece Langan (2000), Lucas Matthews (2001) Kain Robins (2006), Shannon Milward (2008), Josh Bowe (2010), Brodie Filo (2015) and Noah Wheeler (2023)

Matheson had nothing but praise for Evans, who the Hawks will again rely on to set the tone.

“I think he could have won it any of the last five years, we probably just haven’t won enough games in the last three or four years for him to be up there,” he said.

“He’s a star of the competition and one of the most consistent performers over that period of time.

“You could see early on, there was a ruckman and a midfielder in blue jumpers taking a fair few votes off him.

“That was always going to be the hard thing for him this year, whether we had too many players taking votes off him.

“He is our star and our barometer, the guy who gets all or most of the attention from the opposition.

“But he’s also the guy who brings all the boys around him into the game.

“I’ve seen a lot of teams over the last few years put a lot of time into stopping him, but he is a very hard option to stop.”