	{"id":98157,"date":"2025-01-03T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/?p=98157"},"modified":"2024-12-19T18:21:09","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T07:21:09","slug":"reigning-premiers-face-tough-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/sport\/reigning-premiers-face-tough-start\/","title":{"rendered":"Reigning premiers face tough start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THE Winslow White Hills Demons face a tough start in their pursuit of back-to-back premierships across all three grades of football in this year&#8217;s Bendigo Bank Heathcote DFNL action.<\/p>\n<p>A rematch of &#8217;24 grand finalists, White Hills and Leitchville Gunbower will be played under lights at the Demons&#8217; den at Winslow Constructors Oval lights in Scott Street when the season kicks off April 12.<\/p>\n<p>Another big match on that day will be Mount Pleasant against Heathcote at Toolleen.<\/p>\n<p>Round one will feature a night match between the Lockington Bamawm United Cats and Harlowe Huntly Hawks at Lockington.<\/p>\n<p>There will be a general bye on April 19 for Easter.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s another night showdown for White Hills in round two when the Demons play at Elmore on April 26.<\/p>\n<p>A week later and White Hills will be back home to take on North Bendigo.<\/p>\n<p>Victorious against North Bendigo in both of last season&#8217;s matches, Huntly will make the trek to the Bulldogs&#8217; kennel on May 10 in round four.<\/p>\n<p>Highs in round five include Heathcote at home against Leitchville Gunbower at Pigeon Park.<\/p>\n<p>Most recent match between these clubs was the first semi-final which was abandoned after the ground was deemed unsafe following a heavy thunderstorm.<\/p>\n<p>The LG Bombers led when the match was called off in the third quarter and went on to reach the grand final.<\/p>\n<p>In round six, White Hills will be at home against Mount Pleasant as North Bendigo takes on a Colbinabbin team which is being coached by Linton Jacobs after a premiership-winning hat-trick with Marong in the Loddon Valley.<\/p>\n<p>Another big test for Colbinabbin will be at home on M.J. Morgan in round seven against White Hills.<\/p>\n<p>Heathcote will be striving to end North Bendigo&#8217;s hoodoo when they meet at Pigeon Park on the same day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE Winslow White Hills Demons face a tough start in their pursuit of back-to-back premierships across all three grades of football in this year&#8217;s Bendigo Bank Heathcote DFNL action. A rematch of &#8217;24 grand finalists, White Hills and Leitchville Gunbower will be played under lights at the Demons&#8217; den at Winslow Constructors Oval lights in [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/sport\/reigning-premiers-face-tough-start\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":98160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-98157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Reigning premiers face tough start - McIvor Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"White Hills Demons, reigning premiers, face a challenging start to their title defense in the Bendigo Bank Heathcote DFNL.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/sport\/reigning-premiers-face-tough-start\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reigning premiers face tough start - 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