There was a sense of relief when Laurimar broke through for its first win of the Northern Football League division 2 season on Saturday.
Having been promoted in the off season after winning the division 3 premiership, the Power have had their struggles at times playing in the higher division.
On Saturday, that was put behind it as the Power defeated Northcote Park, 12.7 (79)-11.8 (74).
The Power led at quarter time by 11 points and then 19 points at half time.
A six goal to three third quarter blew the margin out to 28 points at the final break.
The Cougars came hard in the final quarter, but the Power did just enough to hold on.
Power coach Jimmy Atkins said it was nice to finally get some reward for effort.
“It has been a tough start and we’ve had to play a lot of the top teams,” he said. “We had some opportunities against Lower Plenty and it could have gone either way.
“Against Thomastown we took a lot of steps forward.”
Atkins said against the Cougars it was just a matter of holding on in the final quarter.
“They threw everything at us,” he said. “They were fantastic.
“In the last four minutes they still needed a goal to win. We were able to keep our head and held the ball in the forward half and had a lot of stoppages which was good.
“We were out on our feet, they came from nowhere.”
Atkins said it was pleasing to see the group hold their nerve in the dying minutes to get their first win at this level.
Joel Lawson kicked three goals for the Power.
Micah Vecchio, Lawson and Bailey Macleod were named the Power’s best.
Atkins said the win would give the group some more confidence going forward. But the group won’t look too far ahead.
“It’ll be nice on track on Tuesday,” he said. “All three teams had wins.
“It’ll be the same thing as normal, one week at a time. We’ll see how we go against Panton Hill.
“They haven’t been going too bad and are around us as well. We’ll look to have the opportunity to play some good football.”
In other results, Thomastown lost a thriller to Lower Plenty, 12.10 (82)-11.14 (80) and South Morang was also on the wrong end of a thriller, losing to St Mary’s, 9.10 (64)-9.9 (63).
Whittlesea remains undefeated having beaten Panton Hill, 12.9 (81)-6.3 (39).
