Last Saturday's Preliminary finals, played at Finley, saw the Barooga Reserves charge into its fourth consecutive playoff, overcoming Tongala comfortably, while the Seniors and under-14s bowed out of the premiership race, being beaten by five and seven points respectively.
The seniors took to a dry Finley ground, taking on Moama, to see if they could get another shot at Tocumwal.
A howling cross breeze made conditions tricky, especially kicking into it, which the Hawks had to do in the first term.
The task started off reasonably well, although inaccuracy hurt.
They tried to stem the flow of Moama's offensive game but the Mowers opened up a handy lead, 5.5 to 2.4.
The second stanza, kicking with the wind, was an opportunity wasted.
Barooga could only manage 4.2 and allowed the Moama boys to kick three majors into the wind.
At the long break, the Hawks were still in arrears by 11 points, 8.5 to 6.6.
After half-time, the Hawks came out with a different mindset, especially the defensive players, who fought tooth and nail to minimise Moama's scoring opportunities.
Unfortunately, they couldn't get it down the other end, with the breeze playing havoc, being able to only register a couple of behinds.
Moama could only register 1.3 to the Hawks' 0.2, setting up an enthralling last quarter.
The Hawks needed to get the first goal of the quarter but this wasn't to be and it looked as though all hope was slowly slipping away.
To their credit, the Hawks mounted a mini surge, kicking a couple of quick goals to ignite the crowd, but easy clearances by the Mowers were hurting the charge.
A post-siren shot was close but alas the Barooga boys' season ended in dramatic circumstances, going down by five points in a thriller.