Box Hill's Round 1 match gave us everything a good football game should.
From high flying marks and exciting spurts of play, to epic goals and suitable celebrations. Sadly, it wasn’t to be the brown and gold's day, with Collingwood snatching victory inside the final minute.
In what was a hard-fought contest, Box Hill finished the game with ten individual goal scorers, impressing an encouraging spread of talent and options on offer within our line-up.
It was Will Day who first got on the board, with a perfect set shot from just inside 50.
Day was impressive and relentless across the ground in his second outing for Box Hill this year.
Daniel Howe and Jackson Callow soon joined him among the goal kickers, with a latter’s contested marking a highlight throughout the day.
Howe’s second arrived after marking uncontested in the goal square, before Jai Serong booted the first of his three majors from a set shot to take the Hawks to the first change with a 12-point lead.
The second term saw Jack Saunders, Ben Cavarra and Fergus Greene slot early goals, as the Hawks stretched their legs en route to a 25-point lead.
The Magpies dug deep in this phase of the game to keep touch, reeling off five unanswered goals to snatch back the lead, before Brady Grey’s centre meter perfect ball found Seamus Mitchell on the goal line.
He converted and the Hawks were five points to the good at the half.
When play resumed, the boys in brown and gold got to work.
The Magpies played arguably their best football of the day during this period, with goals from Callow, Serong and Greene keeping the Hawks in range of their hosts.
The visitors trailed by 13-points into time on, but never wavered in search of a lifeline. That arrived in the shadows of three quarter time when Greene teed up Serong for his third of an impressive individual afternoon.
The final term proved a nail biter. In a back-and-forth half hour, goals from Cavarra, Parsons and Greene erased that three quarter time deficit. When Brady Grey swooped on a loose ball inside 50 and snapped his first of the day the Hawks could almost taste victory.
Unfortunately, despite opportunities to see the game out, the Hawks were left to rue what might have been as Collingwood kicked the final two goals to take a two-point victory.
Callow and Greene were among the Hawks best, with both impressive around the ground and in front of goal. Greene, in particular, was notable for his ability to hit the scoreboard himself and provide opportunities for his teammates.
While disappointed with the result, Senior Coach Clint Proctor was keen to stress the positives of the hit-out, as well as the quality of the contest. He spoke candidly post game about his focuses in the coming week.
“[We’ll work on] a bit of game management.”
“It’s important for us to look at how we handled that last bit of the game with ball in hand and our decision making under pressure.
“We’ll look to support our mids a little bit more in the centre bounces and around the rucks, too.”
We now look ahead to our Round 2 match against Carlton, in our first home game of the season at Box Hill City Oval next Sunday.
Box Hill 5.0 9.3 13.5 17.8 (110)
Collingwood 3.0 8.4 14.4 18.4 (112)
Best: Day, Mascitti, Howe, Greene, Saunders, Beasley
Goals: Serong, Greene 3, Callow, Howe, Cavarra 2, Day, Grey, Mitchell, Parsons, Saunders
Disposals: Day 21, Mascitti 21, Porter 19, Beasley 18, Parsons 18, Grey 17, De Wit 16
