The Hawks went into the clash against Wickliffe/Lake Bolac full of confidence having earned a week off after upsetting minor premiers Hawkesdale/Macarthur in the semi final, however it was the Magpies who started the better of the two.

Wickliffe/Lake Bolac had seven scoring shots to the Hawks' one during the first quarter, with Adrian Howard, Chris Hilet and Jye Hare leading the charge.

Tatyoon coach Ash Maconachie said his team was finding it difficult to match it with the opposition through the centre, however inaccurate kicking (1.5) cost the Magpies a bigger share of the lead.

"We were really struggling in the first quarter in the midfield," he said.

"We couldn't win much of the footy, but I thought our defence did an awesome job stopping us from being five or six goals down at quarter time."

"Wickliffe/Lake Bolac absolutely dominated, I think we only had two forward-50 entries for the whole quarter and we were lucky to kick a goal in one of them.

"We certainly put it on the midfield at quarter time that it was up to them to get us back in the game and they definitely responded."

The shift in momentum began with Hawks' ruckman Nathan Gannon winning the hitouts and giving onballers Jock Laidlaw and Rhys Burger first use out of the centre, while the experience of Kaine Murphy started to shine through.

This allowed better delivery into forwards Josh Scoble and Zander McDougall, and resulted in Tatyoon moving ahead on the scoreboard.

Conner Byrne at half back was instrumental in restricting the Magpies' from scoring during the term, while Maconachie also praised the efforts of defender Simon Lane.

"I think he won about 30 one-on-one contests for the day and just kept cutting the ball off by either spoiling or taking marks and running it out of defence," he said.

"This was the best game he has had at the club in about five years I reckon."

The premiership quarter proved to be just that for the Hawks, with the side putting one hand on the cup as they turned a five point halftime lead into a 30-point buffer.

Maconachie said even though Tatyoon held a five goal advantage at the final break, he urged his charges to play right to the final siren.

“The third quarter was our best for the day, but if we had have been able to kick straight the game would have been over at three quarter time — we did miss three goals from the top of the goal square that didn’t help much!” he said.

“It was still a really good quarter though, we had the ball locked in our forward half most of the time there.

“The last quarter we pretty much just went goal-for-goal, there wasn’t a lot scored, but we managed to hang on.”

There was jubilation for the brown and gold army as the fourth term drew to a close, with the 8.13 (61) to 4.11 (35) score line sealing another reserves’ premiership for Tatyoon.

Laidlaw received the VCFL Medal for a best on ground performance.

“Jock was fantastic in the middle, won a heap of centre clearances and actually took a heap of marks. He is not a real big bloke, but he does take a lot of strong contested marks for his size,” Maconachie said.

“We gave him the job of running with Chris Hilet in the second half and he pretty much shut him out of the game, which is a pretty good effort seeing as Chris is a very handy senior footballer.”

Maconachie said after missing out on the grand final last season, it was a great achievement for the new group to bounce back in 2014.

“When we had the three-peat (2010-12) it was a pretty similar group, but the one this year probably only had four or five of those blokes left,” he said.

“We actually had a really young team. We had kids who were playing their first year of senior footy and they have just blossomed as the season’s gone on.

“In saying that we have also been lucky to have a couple of older experienced players this year that haven’t really played many reserves’ games before come on board.”