Danny Arabin lines up a Binalong Centre at Harden in a crunching tackle.

It was a wet, muddy and windy Saturday for the Harden Hawk’s game against the Boorowa Rovers but the Hawks toughed it out and beat Boorowa 12-6. The Hawks played a game tighter than a hair tie in strong, gusty winds but it only took 10 to 15 minutes for the Harden team to adjust. The Rovers matched Harden’s intensity in the weather and made some commendable last-minute efforts but still fell short at the end of the game. Harden held a defensive line that pushed back against Boorowa’s bulldozing and made some pivotal tackles that kept the opposing team away from the tryline.

The defence was good enough to make coach Nick Hall call it one of the Hawk’s best defensive efforts. “It’s hard to change those instincts in the weather and so we did deal with that but Boorowa were tough so we scrapped and fought for every little thing and they made some great last-minute efforts so credit to Boorowa for their efforts,” he said. “Defensively I was really happy with us.” Austin Power was the first to score last weekend with a successful conversion from Jacob Lucas.

Boorowa quickly retaliated with a try of their own from Matt Carnell and a conversion by Nicolas Stephans to draw the score six all. Luke Brown found a gap in Boorowa’s defence and lead to a try and a conversion by Jacob Lucas to place Harden in front for the rest of the game. “It was a team effort. The defensive line was great across the paddock.”

The Referee stopped the game for a short period after some poor crowd behaviour was raining down on the Harden side from a fired up crowd, before restarting, however, the crowd couldn’t get Boorowa over the line, nor could they put Harden off with veteran Brown silencing them with a 30 metre run and winning try.

This Saturday is a clash between two of the top teams, the Harden Hawks and the Cootamundra Bulldogs at Les Boyd Oval. Nick Hall is looking forward to a tough match with the Doggies who are looking to level the playing field after their round 6 loss.

“Every time you play Coota and you go over there, they play hard. Yep. They fight hard for every little thing.” “They scrap all game and you’ve got to be ready to do that. Amongst them, they’ve got some really classy footballers and it takes a team effort to beat them, that’s for sure. You’ve got to be individually ready to do what it takes.” The match will be played at Les Boyd Oval on Saturday with

kick-off at 2:30pm.

Jack Murray