Top 10 Bendigo Football League matches of the 2025 season | Bendigo Advertiser - Australia News Beep

Brayden Frost and Seb Collins battle it out in the ruck during the 2025 BFNL grand final. Picture by Darren Howe

With the dust settling on the 2025 Bendigo Football League season, the Addy has taken a look back at the season that was.

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We’ve reviewed every game this year and selected our 10 best matches of the year.

10: Eaglehawk 9.11 (65) def Gisborne 8.8 (56) – Qualifying Final

Not the greatest spectacle, but this was finals footy to its core.

Brad Bernacki gets a kick away during the qualifying final.

Griding, contest to contest football all afternoon.

While the margin never exceeded three goals, Eaglehawk led for all but 90 seconds.

That came early in the last quarter when Matt Merrett saluted from a 40m set on shot in the swimming pool pocket.

Tom Bennett responded, and the score was 57-54 at the seven-minute mark of the fourth term.

He missed out on a premiership medal, but Kyen Burrill-Grinton will always have the memory of being the qualifying final matchwinner, soccering the final and decisive major at the 20-minute mark.

9: Sandhurst 10.13 (73) It Gisborne 13.7 (85) – Round 6

Heading into round six, there were fears that 2025 was going to be a cakewalk for Sandhurst.

Shane Clough during Gisborne’s game against Sandhurst in round six

But Gisborne proved the Dragons, who to that point were 5-0 and winning games by an average of 77 points, could be slayed.

Trailing by 25 points at three-quarter-time, the Dragons were within seven halfway through the term after kicking three on the bounce.

However, from a defensive 50 stoppage, Dragons co-coach Lachlan Tardrew was penalised for a throw, and after teammates remonstrated with the umpire, Gisborne midfielder Jacob Murphy was marched to the line for a settler.

The final blow came at 28:00 when Liam Ireland was yellow-carded for an incident with Luke Meletis in the goalsquare, who had no problems converting.

8: Golden Square 11.12 (78) def Gisborne 10.13 (73) – Round 14

Playing for their season, Golden Square kicked three late goals to overrun Gisborne in round 14.

Jordan Rosengren celebrates during Golden Square’s win over Gisborne in round 14

One of the home-and-away season’s biggest upsets, Dylan Hird and Jordan Rosengren combined for the go-ahead goal at the 26th-minute mark of the last stanza.

It was their third in four minutes, having trailed Gisborne 60-72, when Meletis ran into an open goal.

Following Rosengren’s major, the final scoring shot came with 29:00 gone when Gisborne’s James Gray attempted a snap from an impossible angle.

7: Castlemaine 15.14 (104) It South Bendigo 17.6 (108) – Round 15

The shootout of the 2025 season.

Scores were level on four occasions during an eight-goal final term.

A depleted Bloods had scraped to a 102-96 lead when debutant Chase Poyser nailed a South major with three minutes to go.

Magpie Kalan Huntly responded almost immediately before Alex Smith’s long shot from the scoreboard flank with 1:46 left put the Bloods up for good.

The Magpies had one last chance to level the scores with a set shot at the pavilion end, but it was touched through by desperate South defenders.

6: Eaglehawk 14.16 (100) def South Bendigo 13.7 (85) – Round 10

The most enjoyable regular-season game I attended live this season.

What pushed it out of the top five was the fact that Eaglehawk’s lead was never less than 14 points from very early in the first term.

Callum Crisp tackles Joel Mullen during round 10

Nonetheless, both teams played an enthralling end-to-end game of footy.

The Bloods’ three-headed monster of Brock Harvey, Kaiden Antonowicz and Steven Stroobants was at its most dangerous, kicking a dozen of their 13 goals.

Eaglehawk burst out to a 30-6 lead in the opening stages before the Bloods worked their way back into the contest.

The critical juncture came on the three-quarter-time siren when 11th-gamer Deacon Marsh was ice-cool from the 50 arc to put his side up by 29 points.

Six times during the second half, the Bloods got within striking distance, only for the Hawks to respond instantly.

Harvey made it a 93-79 game with 22:00 gone before Jack Thompson sealed the deal five minutes later after receiving a head-high free inside 50.

5: South Bendigo 12.8 (80) def Strathfieldsaye 10.19 (79) – Round 1

Have to go all the way back to round one for the closest game of 2025.

Round one action between South Bendigo and Strathfieldsaye

A new-look South Bendigo in its first game under Troy Coates and Jack Fallon held on for a thrilling one-point victory after at one stage leading by 37 points midway through the third term.

Over the next 20 minutes of game time, the contest was turned on its head as Strathfieldsaye piled on the following 41 points to lead 71-67 early in the last.

The Bloods steadied, and after a long period of neither team scoring, Antonowicz and Fallon slotted back-to-back majors to establish a seven-point buffer.

As players cramped all over Harry Trott Oval due to the extreme heat, the Storm made one final charge to bring the margin back to a solitary point.

But the Bloods saturated the contest as the clock wound down, forcing repeat stoppages to claim victory despite having nine fewer scoring shots.

4: South Bendigo 11.9 (75) def Strathfieldsaye 8.17 (65) – Elimination Final

It came over four months later, but the Bloods and Storm’s elimination final was almost a carbon copy of that round one classic.

South Bendigo made the early running, leading 32-8 during the second term before a Strathfieldsaye comeback.

Chase Poyser during the elimination final

And the Storm were left to rue inaccurate kicking, having five more scoring shots than South.

In a final quarter full of flashpoints, the Bloods were reduced to 17 men when Alex Davis was yellow-carded for collecting Storm youngster Jye Chambers late and high in a marking contest midway through the stanza.

Shortly after, the Storm took a one-point lead when Bode Stevens snapped in traffic with 18:30 gone on the clock.

Fallon put the Bloods back in front with 6:00 to go when Ben Lester gave away a 50m penalty after the co-coach marked at centre wing.

Zac Sims iced the contest with a huge pack mark in the Barnard Street goalsquare with 40 seconds left to make it a 10-point game.

3: Eaglehawk 14.10 (94) It Gisborne 16.9 (105) – Round 4

As Labour steamed ahead to a one-way election victory, Eaglehawk and Gisborne played out a topsy-turvy battle at Canterbury Park.

Braidon Blake wins the tap out against Brayden Frost in round four

Momentum swung violently across the day, but the two sides would always find a way back to near enough level pegging when the sirens sounded.

The margins at each change were one point to Gisborne, level and two points to Eaglehawk.

Pat McKenna kicked three goals in the last quarter, including a floating snap from 40m out to put the Bulldogs 78-74 in front 30 seconds in.

His side wouldn’t relinquish the lead again.

McKenna made it a 16-point ball game, taking a strong contested mark in front of goal with 25:00 gone.

2: Sandhurst 12.12 (84) It Eaglehawk 14.10 (94) – Grand Final

What more can be said about the 2025 BFNL grand final?

Eaglehawk celebrate during the last quarter of the 2025 BFNL grand final

You all know the story already, but if you’d like to relive it in full, Hawks fan, click on the link below.

In the greatest grand final upset this century, the Hawks came from 22 points down at three-quarter-time to kick seven goals to two in the last stanza.

1: BFNL 9.17 (71) vs VAFA 12.9 (81) – Senior Inter-league match

Yes, I realise this isn’t technically a ‘2025 BFNL season match’, but this game was so worthy of the list that it simply had to be put in.

The grand final was more memorable, but this was just the best game of local footy we saw in 2025.

2025 Derrick Filo Medallist Lachlan Tardrew in action for the BFNL

The best players from the BFNL and VAFA came together to produce an unforgettable extra-time inter-league thriller.

On a cold and wet day at the QEO, the VAFA skipped out to a 45-19 quarter-time lead before the BFNL wrestled control.

Kicking with the wind to the City End in the second term, the margin was cut to five points at the main break.

From the start of the fourth quarter to the end of the second period of extra time, the BFNL kicked 1.10 as they let slip a famous win.

With the scores locked at 9.14 (68) to 10.8 (68) entering the first period of extra-time, VAFA’s Bailey Payze kicked the goal of the day, dribbling through a checkside while running towards the old South Bendigo clubrooms pocket to give his side a six-point lead.

VAFA’s James Allen landed the decisive blow at the three-minute mark of the second period, saluting from the set shot to open up an 11-point buffer.

Castlemaine coach Michael Hartley could have brought it to within a kick, but his set shot swung to the left with only 10 seconds remaining.

Earlier, Hartley kicked the BFNL’s only goal of the final stanza during the opening salvos.

That put the BFNL a solitary point up, and Hartley would do the same, this time with a minor score at the 23-minute mark, when his snap sailed wide.

The BFNL peppered the City End goal in the last 15 minutes but just couldn’t register a major, as the siren sounded with scores level when the ball was 20 metres straight in front of the big sticks.

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