Hawks fire early to down their local rivals

After a grand final-finish in 2023, the Hawks underwent a revamp of sorts in the off-season with a large portion of their squad departing and new faces arriving.

Consequently they've had a slow start to the year, and in games, but signs were promising in their most recent 44-32 win over local rivals, the Tingha Tigers in round nine.

Hawks player and president Ethan Anderson said they "harder than we should have" but their strong start to the clash against the Tigers paid dividends.

"We started well this week for a change," he said.

"We were beating the clock, after the first 16 minutes it was 18-nil.

"It was the first game this season where we actually came out of the blocks and started well.

"Then a bit of ill-discipline crept in; a bit of back chat to Carso and one of our boys ended up in the bin. Tingha got back in the game."

And he put the fast start down to their dedication to training throughout their three bye weeks.

"I thought we would struggle to get a few of the boys interested while we weren't playing for those three weeks but trained very hard over those six training runs in that break," Anderson said.

"That has helped us a lot.

"We had a bit of a sit down after training last Thursday and we all said how happy we were with our training over the last couple of weeks."

The new recruits are also starting to find their feet within the side.

Kailan Morgan has settled into the halfback role and Bryce Rackemann has been "very impressive" in dummy-half.

They will have to be sharp again this Saturday with a trip to Moree to face the Boomerangs.

Their coming opponents have also had a rebuild but Anderson knows they're always tough on their home turf.

"Being out there as well, it is going to be tough," he said.

"It doesn't matter they you sit on the ladder, it is always tough when you verse Moree."

In terms of the Hawks' other grades, the under 18s were beaten in a tight game against Warialda.

Like the senior men's side, the juniors are just finding their feet.

"I think there was a try late in the game that just blew that score out to 24-12," Anderson said.

"Similar sort of thing, there's a lot of blokes there that hadn't played footy together and they are starting to gel, figuring out what is the best fit for some of the players in their team."

It was a tough day out for the league tag team against the reigning back-to-back premiers.

They were beaten 50-nil.

Anderson said this year is about learning for the young team.

"They are very young side and a lot of them haven't played much league tag," he said.

"I think there's four girls in the side that are 17.

"They are a very young and inexperienced side.

"We had a fair few of our most experienced girls out with injuries, probably for the rest of the year so that doesn't help."