Hanwood managed to down Young for the first time in their Pascoe Cup history to keep their title defence alive at Rawlings Park on Sunday.
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Hanwood found the back of the net twice inside the first 25 minutes and it proved enough as they eliminated Young from the Pascoe Cup race with a 2-0 finals win.
Michael Cimador pounced on a Young save to open the scoring before Jeylan Gatto added a second with a clinical finish a short time later.
It moves Hanwood through to next week's preliminary final for a showdown with Henwood Park.
Hanwood coach Anthony Agresta was pleased to finally overcome Young in what was the biggest meeting between the two clubs yet.
"We worked pretty hard, especially on our defensive structure because we knew if you give these boys time and space they can cut you to pieces, like they have done to us before," Agresta said.
"We worked pretty hard on that and honed in on that and the boys worked their socks off to get the result today so I'm happy."
Hanwood had the final round bye meaning they had not played in a month heading into the elimination final against Young.
That, combined with Hanwood's record against the Lions and the suspension of Daniel Johnson and Jordan Beltrame made for an uncomfortable opening to finals for the defending premiers. But Agresta is glad to have survived.
"Today you just didn't know how it was going to go because having a month off playing, you can do all the training you like, to not be playing for a while, you didn't know how it was going to play out," he said.
"The boys worked hard, even the guys who came off the bench really put in so it was good to see."
Agresta is happy now to be moving into a preliminary final with momentum.
"As I said during the week, whoever wins this game takes that momentum coming into next week, whoever we play," he said.
He will also be happy to welcome back Johnson and Beltrame.
"Two of our more experienced guys. Today there was obviously a lot of knocks and that so to have two fresh boys available to come back next week, it's definitely going to help," he said.
Michael Musitano, Joe Catanzariti and Demetrio Torino were three of Griffith's better players in the win.
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