Orange Hawks defeat Parkes Spacemen 26-12 in round 12 of Peter McDonald Premiership

Orange Hawks defeated Parkes 26-12 on Sunday at Wade Park with Spacies captain-coach, Jack Creith admitting the loss was an unexpected one for his side.

"I think we have let the guard down a little bit, we have a couple of times with these crossover games," Creith said.

"And I could feel it a little bit before the game during warm-up, but I didn't see that one coming to be honest."

The shadow of the Hawks was well and truly circling the Spacemen, with coach and two-time NRL premiership winner, Shane Rodney able to field 17 "fresh players" on Sunday - a first for his side in six weeks.

"I know [Spacemen have] been going really well the last six to eight weeks and we spoke about that leading into today," Rodney said.

"It was all about our performance - we had a fresh team coming in and they had good game plan - [so] I thought our boys were the better team today."

Just eight minutes in, after a fair few knock-ons and several hit ups, the Spacemen were eventually held up in-goal.

Followed by six-again amidst a ruck infringement some 40 metres out, Hawks' Marika Turagaiviu ended up pelting through a sea of Spacemen.

Fullback Ryan Manning kicked a successful conversion, with the board to make it 6-0 with 28 minutes remaining in the first half.

After a suspected elbow to the face, a bloodied Jesse Shorter was interchanged by Parkes' Tikiko Noke- replacing the prop.

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Wasting no time, Noke gained some serious metres for the Spacemen, with a scrum-feed in Parkes' favour set only 20 metres out from the try line,

Some quick hands from five-eighth to fullback, Creith swung a swift ball out to the left wing - but the Spaceman fumbled under the pressure, only a couple of metres from the line.

A tackle infringement left an advantage open for Hawks with 15 minutes to half-time, with Manning successfully converting the penalty.

The scoreboard at 8-0, a lot of action from both sides didn't seem to reflect figures accurately, as four try attempts from Spacemen were left unaccomplished - either from being held up in-goal, or pulled up on forward passes.

With less than a few minutes to the halfway point, a Hawks grubber kick was successfully caught by Creith.

Though, only two phases in, Hawks managed to steal the ball straight back.

A few cut-out passes from dummy half, centre and out to the right-winger, Turagaiviu got over the line for a second time.

It was a double blow for Parkes as Noke was binned for a late tackle during the score-trying set.

An unsuccessful conversion by Manning left the board at 12-nil at half-time.

"We did frustrate them a little bit and they did come up with a lot of errors," Hawks' Rodney said.

"But to our boys' credit, they were forcing a lot of those errors too, so - I think our boys can take a fair bit out of that as well."

Just a few minutes into the second half, the Hawks momentum kept on going.

After an intercept, Hawks centre Waqasaqa Qiolevu steamrolled downfield into attacking territory.

A dummy pass by the quick five-eighth, Ben Blimka charged over the line, followed by Manning's clean conversion between the posts to make it 18-0.

Spacemen copped a shepherd penalty soon after, leading to another successful conversion kick by Manning - and another two points for the board to put the hosts firmly in control.

With 11 minutes to full-time, Parkes got a whiff of points for the first time in the game.

A short chip from Dwyer, and a quick inside pass back from Creith led to Brandon Paige getting the ball well and truly over the line.

Followed by Chad Porter's successful conversion, the scoreboard read a more dignified 20-6.

Though, Hawks immediately returned serve - with Qiolevu's pass to winger Chris Anderson grounding the ball for another try, followed by another greenlight kick from Manning - taking the boys to 26-6.

With a mere minute to go, however, Spacemen made one last attack before the full-time whistle sounded.

Ending in Dwyer's try and another good conversion from Porter, the board was left to read 26-12 in Orange Hawks' favour.

"It always hurts immediately [after], but sometimes you need a loss," Parkes' Creith said.

"Six [wins] in a row, you start to feel pretty good about yourselves - so you might not train as hard, you might not do what you should throughout the week - so, maybe it's a little wake-up call to get back to what we were doing good."

Admitting to letting the guard slip, Creith said his Spacemen have done so "a couple of times" with these crossover matches.

"I think we know where we should be and we've come into the preparation a little bit lazy," he said.

"But - if we'd won today - maybe we wouldn't address the things we needed to and then they'd rear at the head the next week.

"So, we'll train harder and look to knock-off each team on the way to the finals; and we'll remember this one as a little road bump."

Hawks' coach Rodney said while the victory brought a noteworthy pot of positive emotions for the triumphant side, he also remained realistic about the road ahead.

"We're not too naive, we know it's only one win and it gets us back on track a little bit; but they need to build on this now, because if they don't back it up next week - then it doesn't mean a lot," he said.

"When I spoke to the team [after the game], I said enjoy the win, it was good; but we need to move forward to next week and they need to take what they did today and do better again next week. So, building on this momentum and hopefully, they can do that."

While Rodney also said there's "still, mathematically a chance" for the boys to reach finals, there'll be some hard work and commitment involved to make those wishes come true.

"For us, it's week-to-week and today was just the first step - it doesn't get any easier from here," he said.

"We've got [Orange] CYMS next week, so the boys will just have to get back on and if they play like they did today - they'll give themselves a chance to beat anyone."

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