The ninth-placed Magpies surprised third-ranked Portland in a twilight fixture at Leura Oval, winning 13.10 (88) to 9.8 (62).

A best-on-ground effort from Hamish Sinnott and five-goal performance from Sam Gordon helped the Pies to just their third win in 14 rounds.

"It is really great reward for the guys; it's obviously been a tough year but they've never dropped off with their commitment or training standards. I was rapt for them to get a scalp," Camperdown coach Neville Swayn said.

"We spoke at our meeting midway through the year and the aim was to keep improving but if we could get a couple of scalps that would be great and to get a top-three one was really, really pleasing."

Swayn, who praised 15-year-old "live-wire" Tom Baker who kicked a goal on debut, said consistency was key against the Tigers.

"We felt we'd been going OK the past three or four weeks but we'd had a really bad quarter each game," he said.

"There was patches last night of about 10 minutes but to the boys' credit they worked their way out of it whereas weeks prior we didn't.

"We know how they play; they love to move the ball quickly so our pressure had to be right on and our ball use the other way had to be as good because if you turn it over they run hard off their half-back line and that's where they can hurt you."

Portland senior assistant coach Cam Brown, who stood in for coach Jarrod Holt, wants the defeat to spark the Tigers.

"We were disappointed to say the least. We probably set ourselves up to have a decent crack at it.

"Losing Lochie Huppatz (hamstring) in the first 30 seconds threw the structure out a little bit.

"He's a gun footballer so losing him out of the midfield put us on the back-foot for the first couple of minutes and we probably had a lot of blokes down on the day.

"It seemed like we couldn't get them into the game. We tried moving them around, putting them into different positions, but Camperdown's will to get to the contest outworked us. They probably showed us they wanted the game more than we did."

Brown said the Tigers would back themselves into respond against fourth-placed North Warrnambool Eagles at Bushfield Recreation Reserve.

"It is a massive challenge for us to re-group. We've had a flat couple of weeks, the Hamilton game we weren't at our best at all and Camperdown dropping that hopefully it sparks us back into gear," he said.

"We are under no illusions. We're still a work in progress. We'll go in with confidence, we know our best footy can match it with the best of them."

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