The string of close finishes between Box Hill and Port Melbourne continued on Sunday, as the Hawks fell to the Borough by four points.

Box Hill was slow out of the gate, conceding the first goal within the opening minute of play. As the quarter wore on, however, the Hawks began to adjust to the tempo of the game to head into the first break trailing by just eight points.

The biggest issue early was the ease with which Port Melbourne rebounded from defensive 50 due to a lack of forward pressure from the Hawks.

“I think early in the game we were pretty poor at that [forward defensive pressure]. It was coming out regularly and obviously we couldn’t hold it in there and create stoppages,” Coach Damian Carroll said.

“As the game went on I thought the bigger guys kept it in there a lot better … and we had some numbers pushing in there from the midfield.

"That was a pleasing part of the game particularly through those second and third quarters.”

The last quarter was a tough, contested arm wrestle, which highlighted the importance of winning the contested footy.

Unfortunately for the Hawks, they didn’t have enough to get over the line and the result was another heartbreakingly close loss to Port Melbourne, in similar circumstances to last year’s three-point thriller.

Despite the loss, it was a game riddled with positives, some of which Carroll hopes to take into next week’s encounter against Essendon.

“We are looking to take some positives out of it and look to where we can get better next week. They were pretty comprehensive against Bendigo, so we will need to be on our toes and hopefully we can play good enough footy to come away with a win.”

Hawthorn listed players:

34. Jordan Kelly
Stats: 4 kicks, 9 handballs, 3 marks

35. Sam Grimley
Stats: 11 kicks, 4 handballs, 6 marks, 3 goals

40. Tim O’Brien
Stats: 4 kicks, 4 handballs, 2 marks

41. Taylor Duryea
Stats: 16 kicks, 6 handballs, 9 marks

43. Amos Frank
Stats: 3 kicks, 5 handballs, 1 mark, 1 goal

46. Derrick Wanganeen
Stats: 10 kicks, 9 handballs, 5 marks

47. Jonathon Ceglar
Stats: 5 kicks, 8 handballs, 5 marks, 28 hitous

63. Kyle Cheney
Stats: 16 kicks, 4 handballs, 9 marks

67. Matthew Spangher
Stats: 11 kicks, 7 handballs, 7 marks, 2 goals

70. Luke Lowden
Stats: 10 kicks, 4 handballs, 7 marks, 3goals, 13 hitouts

72. Jonathon Simpkin
Stats: 17 kicks, 14 handballs, 9 marks

77. Michael Osborne
Stats: 8 kicks, 5 handballs, 4 marks, 2 goals

83. Brian Lake
Stats: 11 kicks, 2 handballs, 6 marks

Goals: L. Lowden 3, S. Grimley 3, M. Spangher 2, M. Osborne 2, L. Tobin , A. Frank , B. Wood
Best: K. Cheney, T. Duryea, J. Simpkin, M. Spangher, D. Mirra, D. Pratt