THE Tea Gardens Hawks senior men’s side finally took to the field after a washout week to play Paterson at home on Myall Park on Saturday 9 August.
Despite the recent return of heavy and persistent rains, Myall Park’s good drainage and sandy disposition meant the field was cleared for play.
The sunny skies were welcome accompaniments to the Hawks’ first home game in almost a month.
The last meeting of the sides in mid-June saw Paterson take out a 40-0 win.
A strong kick off from the Hawks put Paterson on the back foot immediately as they failed to control the ball.
The Hawks’ first tackle was metres out from the tryline, and their first try came mere minutes into the match, Brent Johnson grounding it in the left corner for first points.
Paterson returned the favour with their own try in short order, but when the Hawks next kicked off, Paterson’s defenders failed to stop the ball from bouncing out, giving a welcome territory gain via a line dropout.
The Hawks pushed strongly near the line, but Paterson’s defence resisted the attack, eventually taking possession and running the ball up the other end to score under the posts.
Establishing dominance in possession, Paterson took every opportunity to run at the tryline, with one dangerous attack off a fifth-tackle kick scuppered by quick-moving Hawks defenders.
Despite strong attacks from both sides, much of the latter first half was scoreless, before Paterson scored a contentious try in the far-left corner as the half came to a close.
Paterson began the second half with a dribbly kick directly to their own front row, granting themselves possession in dangerous field position.
The visitors soon scored again near the posts, before a head-high tackle on a Hawks player won the home side a penalty, bringing play to within metres of the tryline.
A Hawks team effort helped Brent Johnson score his second try, and Alex Sinclair made the conversion, bringing the scoreline to 10-28.
The Hawks then scored again next to the posts, after James Sinclair caught a high kick and put in Paul Mascord for the grounding.
Alex Sinclair’s successful conversion further reduced the deficit.
As the game came to a close, Paterson extended their lead with a converted try on the buzzer, for a 16-34 finish in favour of the visitors.
By Thomas O’KEEFE
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