ORANGE Hawks will take time.
He may not have used those exact words, but it’s the message Orange Hawks coach James Wynne conveyed to his troops after the two blues suffered a 43-6 loss in the first Orange derby of the Group 10 season against CYMS at Wade Park.
“Everything is new obviously,” Wynne said following the game on Saturday night.
“We have a lot of new players, new coach, but we’re not going to use any excuses either. [CYMS] were a better team and probably a 40-point better team in the end. The bounce of the ball went their way which it does when you make your own luck.
‘Full credit to them. We have some work to do.”
Hawks showed promising signs in the first half against CYMS, controlling possession for large periods of the half.
However, CYMS took their chances and Hawks didn’t.
The half-time score was 17-6 following four-pointers to CYMS’ Claude Gordon, Terawhiti Cooper and Scott Piper while Hawks’ try came off the back of a lovely cut-out pass from Wynne which put centre Jared Brodrick over out wide.
Hawks could have easily been the first to score in the second half, however, a forward pass call went against them and two minutes later CYMS hit back to make it 23-6.
The green and golds then ran away with it.
Although disappointed at the way his side conceded points at the back end of the game, Wynne was encouraged by Hawks’ first 40 minutes.
He said they’d train hard during the week in preparation for next weekend’s game against Bathurst Panthers at Wade Park on Saturday.
“We’ll turn up ready to go. We’ve already had a chat about it and all of the boys are pretty keen to improve obviously and we’ll see how we go,” Wynne said.
Wynne said Lachlan Sturgeon, Brodrick and Mitch Hurford were three of his side’s best against CYMS in round one, but he reserved special mention for prop Zac Bohan.
“I thought he was exceptional,” Wynne said.
“For a guy who can’t get to training all the time because of work commitments I thought he did really well.”
nick.mcgrath@ruralpress.com