Difficult start to the season for Hawks as undermanned side falls in Griffith

Some late withdrawals from the Hawks meant that they only had 11 players for the first grade clash, with a number of those backing up from the reserve grade game, meaning it was always going to be tough against the strong outfit that the Panthers have assembled.

Hawks co-coach Matthew Goodwill was quick to put any player concerns to bed saying that it would be a one-off occurrence.

"It won't happen again it was just because the fixture was changed from Sunday to Saturday," he said.

"A lot of the Fijians that we have play rugby union as well so we had a clash with that. We have the bye next week and we will look to come out hard again in two weeks time."

It didn't take long for the Black and Whites to make the most of the numerical advantage as Solo Toru and Tali Talioesila found their way over the line inside the first eight minutes.

It looked like it was going to be a quick afternoon as, off the back of a break from new signing Eseroma Nawaqa, Naason Mataora found his way over to give the Panthers a 16-0 lead after 15 minutes.

The scoring slowed in the middle part of the first half before Toru scored his second of the afternoon just before the half-hour mark while two quick tries to Semisi Liu saw the lead swell to 34-0 at the break.

Sireli Vulaono crossed three minutes after halftime to continue the dominance, and Paula Naidike was able to make the most of the tiring Hawks' defence and score his first of the day.

Toru was able to complete his hat-trick soon after despite a determined chase by Hawks full back Dylan Ingram and while Naidike could have scored his second decided instead to pass off to Lavaka to make it 42-0.

As the heavens opened once again the Black and Whites were able to get out to a 60-point lead with Vualono crossing for his second of the afternoon and with the successful conversion from Liu the game was called.

Goodwill felt that while his side weren't able to make an impact on the scoreboard, he still felt his side showed what they had to offer.

"The boys that were there played the game of two men," he said.

"As much as it was a pretty miserable and wet kind of day I think we were able to complete our sets.

"We were able to keep hold of the ball and do some damage when we had it.

"Hopefully we can go again in two weeks time with more numbers."

After the bye in round two, the Hawks will hit the road to take on West Wyalong.