Harden Hawk’s mini-bus, together with a fleet of cars loaded with their players and an entourage of supporters, drove into Boomanulla Oval, last Saturday around 1 pm.

Patches of snow topped the Brindabella Ranges around Canberra, however just as though our Harden men had ordered it, the weather down there seemed like a mini-heatwave, with bright, brilliant, warn sunshine adorning the Southern outskirts of the ACT, for the Harden Hawks verses Boomanulla Raiders Clash.

Our Hawks are nearing full strength, but still have 4 of their “big guns” under wraps in readiness for the finals ahead.

The Hawkettes ladies touch team set the stage for the afternoon with a resounding victory over the newcomers to the comp, the Boomanulla Raiderettes (21 tries to 1). It was a match played in good spirit throughout.

In these semi-springtime conditions (although I believe that night, temp. plummeted to minis 7) Boomanulla Raiders kicked off. The Hawks on receiving the ball, completed their 6 tackle count admiradably, then kicked ahead, hemming the home team in, until they surrendered possession.

Harden took advantage of this. And after a succession of passes culminating with five-eighth Abed Attalah directing a well placed kick towards the Parliament House direction corner, for left winger Nathan Hawkins to accept a good catch and dive over for the Hawk’s initial try. Attalah added the extras from the sideline with ’right to left’, boomerang style conversion. 6-0.

Riley Manwaring repeated the dose when he scooped up a loose ball and raced away for the Hawks second try. 10-0.

It seemed that Harden were blessed. This particulary, because their centre – Adam Byrne had just flown back on Qantas from ROME Italy, where he had visited St. Peters Basilica, the Sistine Chappel, and had THE POPE wave him ‘GOOD-LUCK’ to him, from the balcony.

Harden kept the pressure on the Raiders, who were challenging in defence, but failing to put points on the Scoreboard. At this stage Tommy Hawkins thought ‘whatever my brother can, do I can do better’; so he launched himself at the try-line, crashing over for a converted one, making the score Hawks 16 Raiders 0.

Twin Town five-eighth Abed Atallah certainly was ruling the Hawk’s roost (so to speak), with his astute line kicking. He hit the jackpot gaining his team more momentum at this juncture booting, a great 40/20. Kierin Reid who was having a blinder, capitalised on this diving over. And it was 22-0.

An intercept enabled Boomanulla to open their account, running 60 metres to score wide out, but at half time, the Hawks were well in command 22-4.

On resumption, Harden seemed to relax initially and a high up and under was put up and accepted by the Raider’s C/C who scored adjacent to the posts, boosting their tally and narrowing the gap to 22-10, with a successful conversion.

The game was being played at a fast and hectic pace, with ferocious tackling. Leading Harden’s charge was Nick Fuller who was tackling himself to a standstill. And big Luke Piercy was stamping himself as a certain Man of the Match.

The Raiders had now a slight glimmer of hope. However Hawk’s C/C Luke Brown soon extinguished this, accepting a bullet-like pass to crash over in the corner, under a mass of tacklers. At 28-10 it was a matter of ‘how far’.

A try to Nick Fuller (Harden) and a consolation try from another intercept to Boomanulla Raiders, showed ‘how far’.. Harden 34 Boomanulla 16 as the final siren sounded.

The final competition Round 14, is against Boorowa, at McLean Oval on Saturday @ 3pm. See you there.

WINGS.