Somehow the men in black found a way to salvage a 30-all draw at Carrington Park.

Blake Lawson crossed for his hat-trick try with just 50 seconds to go to give the hosts a shot at victory.

Jye Barrow had an opportunity to win the match for the hosts with his post-siren sideline conversion but the attempt went just wide of the uprights.

"That second half was character building stuff. That's what you normally get from teams six or seven rounds in, when they start to gel together,” Panthers player-coach Doug Hewitt said.

"There wasn't much to be proud of in that first half. We turned too much ball over and had a couple of silly penalties. I don't think they were making too much ground themselves, we were just inviting them down our end.

"Completions and possession was going to win this game but in the first half we went away from that. In the second half we pulled our heads in, played boring footy just to get us back in the grind.”

A Panthers error was swiftly punished by the Hawks to give the hosts a nightmare start to the match.

Rakai Tuheki’s try and Willie Heta’s conversion gave the Hawks a 6-0 lead inside the first three minutes.

Hawks prop Saulala Houma delivered a perfect long ball to the wing to put Emmanuel Rodriguez into space.

On the back of yet another Panthers error on their own try line the Hawks pushed the lead out to 16-0 when their other winger, Jordan Baker, got on the score sheet.

Lawson pounced on a dropped bomb to open the scoring for Panthers but a second try of the day to Rodriguez and a dive under under the posts from Jake Blimka gave Hawks a sizeable advantage at the break.

The lead blew out to 24 when Baker scored again just five minutes into the second half.

However, it would be the last time the Hawks would make an impact on the scoreboard.

Panthers halves Hewitt and Trent Hotham plus centre Barrow all scored in the space of nine minutes to bring it back to 30-22.

A brawl inside the final 15 minutes led to Hawks’ Liam Brodrick and Panthers’ Jack Siejka being sent off but it didn’t stop the hosts from their comeback quest.

Lawson scored on the next Panthers set after the brawl to make it a one-score game.

Inside the final minute the Panthers spread to ball to the right side and, even with the Hawks numbering up well in defence, Lawson muscled over the try line to level the scores.

"We put in a good 40 minutes but we talked in the sheds about the fact that if we can score that many points in a half then so can they. It showed in that second half,” Hawks player-coach Heta said.

"It's disappointing because we'd done the hard stuff off the field. We just fell into those silly habits that we had last season so there's still work to do there for the rest of the season."