Harden Hawks played a home ground opening match against the Binalong Brahmans 22-14, a good start for the Harden side. Drew Arabin and Jarrod Sharman both scored single tries while Jayden Cutting got two to put the Hawks ahead. Zakaia Lewis converted three of the four tries.
Coach Nick Hall said he was confident in his side’s victory from the early stages of the game.
“We had a lot of new faces in our side. I think they all knew what to expect out of Binalong, but a lot of new faces which had to learn and we talked about them being tough and competitive and playing to the last whistle and that’s what they got.
“I think both sides weren’t at their best which happens in round one. Everyone gets better round two, round three you’ll see the George Tooke performances across the board improve and I think that’ll happen with those two sides.
“The scrappiness, competitiveness from sides sometimes caused a few errors and issues. Players, the coaches, and I were on the edge of our seats and the whole way through, but I think it was really entertaining for everyone and we scored a try with a minute and a half or two minutes to go to put it beyond doubt. We were leading by two points and then we scored in the last two minutes. If they had of kicked goals a little bit better or if the ball had of bounced another way, things could have been different. I was really proud, they were pretty tough, pretty physical, pretty competitive in the middle, especially with so many new faces.
“A few of the new players were pretty good. Corey Lucas got players’ player and he’s one of the new faces. He was really strong. He’s the younger brother of Jacob Lucas, a former Cherrypicker.
“Jayden (Cutting) scored a couple of tries, scored a key try at the end. He was dangerous.
“We put Temora to the sword, we beat them 48-16. We had a pretty good couple of weeks with our trials, we really put the Southern Highlands to the sword and then did a pretty good job against Temora Reserve Grade in a nice hard trial.
“We are doing alright. We have a game against UC Stars who didn’t have a great start on the weekend, but we are aware of the round one result and assuming because we’ve seen blokes that think that a side’s (and I think it happened to Stars and us last year), where we thought were looking pretty good and all of a sudden UC were better, because they improved and we probably took them lightly and came back and was a challenge for us.”
Hawks will face UC Stars at Raiders Belconnen at 2:30pm on Saturday.
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