He came up with a couple of untypical errors in the opening stages of the round 10 clash and was reasonably quiet all-around in the first half, but with his side trailing the motivated Magpies by two points Heta exploded after the break.

As errors and ill-discipline crept into the visitors' performance Hawks' big men began to roll through the middle and Heta took full advantage, orchestrating the two blues' four-tries-to-none second half and leading his side to a 28-6 victory.

Heta scored two of those tries himself, in the 62^nd and 69^th minutes, and mounted pressure on the Magpies with his astute kicking game, forcing a handful of errors from bombs and a couple of repeat sets from defter nudges close to the line.

Although, as he tends to, Heta preferred to focus on his team's performance rather than his own, particularly defensively.

He wasn't wrong in heaping praise on his two blues' effort without the ball either.

Hawks were actually first to score but Cowra had the better of the opening half in terms of possession and territory too, and by right should've boasted more than the 6-4 lead they held at half-time.

The Magpies threw everything they could at the two blues in the second half too but the hosts held, and with Heta pulling the strings were good enough to take advantage of the plethora of ball Cowra coughed up.

"Keeping Cowra to zero in that second half is the most pleasing thing about that game I think but we're in a pretty good place at the moment. We're getting some consistency about our footy and we showed that defensively, I thought we did a really good job to keep them out for so long," Heta said.

"I say every week I'll take a win against anyone but particularly against a motivated Cowra side like that. We knew they were going to come, we knew they were going to throw everything at us to try and get the back end of their season off to a good start.

"A few things didn't go right for us in the first half but we spoke about that and we adjusted really well, that was very pleasing."

Heta reserved special praise for those middle men that helped create space for him and the likes of centre Corey Brown, who was equally as dangerous in the second half.

Sam Coyte, Ethan McKellar, Nathan Potts and Talon Hodge were all huge in the pack, lifting after they lost star back-rower Rakai Tuheke to a head knock at the 23-minute mark of the clash, when it was still nil-all.

"Losing a player Rakai it is easy, in a way, to sort of wonder where you're going to go because he does have so much ability," Heta said, his young edge forward didn't return after being helped from the field on jelly legs.

"Ability-wise I'm not sure we've got better than him in that pack but the guys did a really outstanding job to lift once he went off.

"We've got the bye now and that will be helpful there so we'll see how Rakai is this week, but having the week off helps. It helps in general really because we're working our way back toward our full-strength squad and we'll need that in the back end of the season."

Sunday's clash also marked the return of mercurial Cowra five-eighth Jeremy Gordon, the 2017 Group 10 player-of-the-year looked like he'd not missed much footy at all too.

He was threatening as ever on the Magpies' left edge, from go to woah, and laid on the side's only try with a beautiful cut-out ball to centre Bradyn Cassidy, who did a good job twisting and turning in a Duncan Young cover tackle to plant it down in the 37^th minute.

But his effort, nor that of halves partner Joey Bugg who was strong on the other side, wasn't enough, Gordon saying his side simply gave Hawks too many chances.

"Too many penalties, too many errors, we just gave them way too much ball. With a quality side like Hawks you just can't do that because they'll cut you to shreds, just like Willie did in that second half," Gordon said, adding how good it was to be back from injury despite the loss.

"It's been a pretty tough four months or so really, watching the boys, the lungs are burning now I tell you what. It's great to be back though.

"It was probably a bit of that in general, maybe ran out of gas a bit and just made too many silly errors, but we'll fix those things up and I think we'll be right."

It wasn't until the 34-minute mark Hawks opened the scoring and that was somewhat against the run of play considering the chances Cowra had, Brown creating some space with a nice in-and-away for Eman Rodriguez to score.

Young missed his shot before Gordon sent Cassidy over three minutes later, Caley Mok's successful conversion giving the visitors a 6-4 lead.

They held that lead for seven minutes in the second half before Heta and his Hawks flicked the switch, first Young scoring following back-to-back penalties and then Coyte was held up a few minutes later.

The two blues maintained that pressure and Heta reaped the reward, jinking his way through in the 62^nd minute and then waltzing over courtesy of a show-and-go that led to a gaping hole opening up five minutes later.

His second came after he sent a towering bomb skyward, which Cowra fullback Lee McClintlock spilled.

Coyte made good the second time he crossed the line, nine out from full-time, Young's fourth conversion of the day pushing Hawks' lead to 22 points.