East Wagga-Kooringal spoiled the party at The Rock on Saturday, recovering from a scoreless third quarter and a seven-point deficit at the last break to grind out a win by the same margin.
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On a day when The Rock-Yerong Creek celebrated 20 years since they won back-to-back flags, the Hawks made life a little harder in their bid to play finals this year.
The 9.8 (62) to 7.13 (55) result keeps the Pies in seventh, two wins plus percentage outside the five.
Fourth-placed EWK have almost certainly locked down a finals spot, sitting four games clear of the sixth-placed Northern Jets. If they beat the Jets next week, they could be in the top three.
But an ankle injury to Ben Absolum is a big concern – he went off in the first quarter and didn’t return.
And their current form is another, with coach Matt Hard relieved rather than excited at the result.
“Just our skill level really hurt us today I thought, so it’s something we might have to address during the week,” Hard said.
“We just seemed to turn the footy over a lot today which is mind-boggling.
“It was (partly to do with) pressure. And they had a bit to play for out there (the reunion, David Pieper’s 350th career game and the game being played in memory of club legend Mark O’Leary).
“But we’re just playing really patchy footy at the minute. We’ve got to find some consistency pretty quickly.”
The Pies led narrowly at quarter-time after both teams traded three goals each, before EWK went 10 points up at half-time after having the better of the second quarter.
However, they failed to find even a point in the third quarter and were lucky the game didn't get away from them, as TRYC kicked only two goals and five behinds.
““We had close to a dozen inside 50s and couldn’t register a score so that was disappointing, very disappointing,” Hard said.
“I just said to them we’re doing a lot of basic things wrong – we keep turning the footy over which puts everybody out of position. We’ve just got to have a bit more care and work a little bit harder.
“They probably had their opportunities… but I felt confident enough at three quarter time that we had the run in our legs to run the game out. But we only just seem to be doing enough of late.”
The Hawks did have the better of another low scoring term – taking their turn to kick 2.5 but holding the Pies to three points to scrape home.
Tom Pocock led the way for EWK, with another strong game across half-back, along with Nick Curan, while Chris Gordon and Harry Fitzsimmons through the middle and Jacob Tiernan up forward were also good.
Brocke Argus kicked four of his side’s nine goals, taking him to 22 in his last four games, and Brenton Roberts three.
For the Pies, Justin Driscoll’s excellent season continues. He had another fine game while Jim Carroll and Tom Yates were solid and Sam Lucas kicked three goals.
The Pies travel to Barellan next week while the Hawks are home to the Jets.
