The Hawks led 28-8 at the break on the back of some slick attacking football, with last week’s top performer, Daniel Benson, playing half-back this week, again in the thick of the action. 

Lock forward Matt Finlayson continually put his outside backs into space with his offloads, and it was a Finlayson pass that put Ben Murray into space for the first points of the game. 

Soon after Benson scored the try of the match, making a break down the grand stand side of the field before linking with winger Dan Lawton who found Luke Barry in support who again found Benson for a touchdown and a 12-4 lead. Hard running centre, Chris Simon scored a double and prop Matt Kirkland crossed right on halftime to give the Hawks their 20 point lead.

The second half turned into a bit of a sloppy affair, the Hawks’ only try coming from Chris Simon who crossed for his hat-trick.

 Jared Goodwin was strong off the bench and prop forwards, brothers Matt and Ben Kirkland, were both impressive, their strong runs in the middle of the paddock giving the play-makers plenty of room to move, while second row forward Luke Ross was as strong as ever, earning plenty of praise from sideline motivator Capt Gav.

 The Hawks now have a fortnight break courtesy of a bye and a Group 3 free weekend. 

They will be back at the Harry Elliott Oval on Sunday May 10 when they play host to the Port Macquarie Breakers with the ladies to kick off proceedings at 11.30am, while the first grade is set down for a 3pm start.   

In other grades, the ladies got straight back to their winning groove in last year’s grand final rematch. 

The Hawks turned the tables, defeating Wauchope 32-0, scoring some 

excellent tries along the way. The under-18s scored an impressive 18-16 win in an outstanding game of rugby league. The reserve grade side were extremely unlucky to go down 26-28 to the Blues, with Wauchope pouncing on a loose ball in the dying moments to win an entertaining match.