YARRAWONGA reversed two home and away losses against North Albury to send the Hoppers crashing out of the Ovens and Murray Football League finals series on Sunday.
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The Hoppers scored two narrow wins against the Pigeons this season including a round 16 titanic struggle at Yarrawonga.
But the Hoppers were found wanting in the finals furnace and exited the flag race with a 59-point touch-up at the Norm Minns Oval.
The only moment of concern for the Pigeons was whether they did enough with a strong breeze in the opening term.
They led by only 18 points with Kayne Pettifer unable to translate his brilliant play in the forward 50-metres onto the scoreboard.
He kicked 2.4 in the first quarter with the Hoppers only goal into the breeze kicked from a tight angle by Kristian Cary.
North Albury botched its use of the breeze in the second term with the pressure mounting when exciting youngster Jess Koopman and Brendan Fevola kicked goals to push the margin out to 29 points eight minutes in.
The Fevola goal was courtesy of a downfield free-kick as the Hoppers developed the wobbles.
The Hoppers kicked the next two goals to get back within 17 points, but the Pigeons’ defence was difficult to penetrate with co-coach Drew Barnes patrolling the half-back line superbly.
Time and time again he picked off some wayward Hoppers’ forward entries with nine intercept marks among his 13 grabs for the game.
The Pigeons’ mid-field took total control after half-time with Tim Cooper the pick of a star-studded bunch with 24 kicks, 12 handballs and 11 marks.
Xavier Leslie, Craig Ednie and Tyler Bonat were also superb.
Pettifer owned the front half with eight marks inside forward 50 metres and only poor conversion (5.6 and two total misses) robbed him of an even better return.
The Hoppers’ fortunes nose-dived further early in the third term when Josh Lloyd had to leave the ground on a stretcher after being concussed.
The Pigeons slammed on seven goals to one in the third quarter as the Hoppers had no answer to their opponents pressure and intensity.
The margin had blown out to a match-winning 56 points at the last change.
"We've had two losses to North Albury in tight games," Barnes said.
"We've been assessing those games and I was pleased the work we had put in came off.
"Self-belief, confidence all comes about from winning.
"The majority of the guys jumped on board and played some good games."
The Hoppers struggled for clear winners, but Lachlan Taylor-Nugent, David Miles and Ricky Whitehead battled hard.
