While it was a heavy defeat at the hands of the Black and Whites, Yanco-Wamoon is taking the positives from a 52-6 defeat at Yanco Sportsground.
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The Hawks were able to match it with the third-placed Panthers before the Griffith-based side scored tries in quick succession to take a 30-0 lead into the break.
Staring down the barrel of a similar result to the 60-0 defeat in round four, the Hawks put in their best effort to avoid the mercy rule being invoked once more.
The Panthers were able to put on 22 more points in the second half, but Yanco-Wamoon were able to break through to score through Will Kelly to not only restrict the Black and Whites to less points, but they were also able to breach their defence.
For Hawks coach Kane Hammond it was a case of a battle between two sides at opposing ends of the ladder.
"It was a game that we started really well, but after 20 minutes, the game became a bit too fast for us," he said.
"The Black and Whites were able to push through the middle of the field with their bigger bodies, and that probably made the difference in the end.
"They are a top three side, and they were able to take their chances, and they were able to score a lot of points very quickly. In a fifteen-minute period before halftime, they put on three or four quick tries, and that took it away from us."
Hammond was taking the positives looking at the previous clash between the two sides as a metric to see how far the side had come.
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"That was one of the things that we spoke about," he said.
"How far we had come as a teams from the team when we played them in round four we have improved a lot which is a real positive for the club moving forward.
"Our effort all day was tremendous. I couldn't fault them, and even in the 80th minute, the boys were still stopping tries, and that was a real positive."
While the Hawks are still mathematically in finals contention, they would need to win their remaining games and hope the teams around them lose the majority of their remaining games.
Hammond is instead turning their attention into getting into the best position to mount a charge in 2023.
"It's not on our agenda for this year," he said.
"We want to go into the bye this weekend, rest up some of the sore bodies and then just enjoy the next four rounds of the season.
"We have a really good young squad, so we want to finish the year off as strong as we can."
After having the week off this weekend, the Hawks will launch into their four games with West Wyalong.
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