IN a scoreline seldom seen in Group 10, Orange Hawks held on for a 10-4 win over Lithgow Workies yesterday in a game where the defence of both teams was outstanding.

Hawks had to withstand a mountain of pressure from Workies in the last 15 minutes at Wade Park to hang on, with captain-coach Ryan Prevett proud of the valiant defensive effort.

“I was just saying in the sheds, it’s been a long time since I’ve won a game 10-4 but it was a great defensive effort by us and Workies, to their credit, didn’t stop coming all day,” an exhausted Prevett said after the game.

“It was a tough game but the scoreline was probably just.

“After Cowra and Mudgee a couple of weeks before that, our defence was pretty woeful and we have worked on it pretty hard in the last couple of weeks but there was just a lot of talk today.

“I think we probably couldn’t have played any better defensively.”

Workies coach Michael Rushworth also praised the defence of both sides in the cold and wet conditions, despite his side dropping the two points.

“The weather might have had a fair bit to do with that, that’s for sure,” Rushworth said.

“It was always going to be a grind and that’s how it turned out and Hawks grinded better than us.

“Both sides defended well, as the scoreline showed. But full credit to Hawks, they’ve come away with the two points and we’ll go home licking our wounds.”

It took just three minutes for Hawks to display how tough it would be to cross their line when cover defence held Ben Lovett up before the winger was pushed into touch in goal.

Workies came close to scoring again in the ninth minute but were held up again before Daniel Beckett nearly scored a try one minute later when he regathered a Brett Ranse grubber, only to go over the dead ball line before grounding it.

The home side weathered the early Workies pressure and nearly scored themselves in the 18th minute when Trent Morgan was centimetres away from getting on the end of brother Steve’s kick into the Lithgow in-goal area.

Hawks second-rower Jesse Bromwich looked dangerous out wide when he came on midway through the first half and he made a big impact just three minutes from half-time when he popped a ball around the back of a defender to put Morgan in for the first try.

Todd Barrow’s conversion was unsuccessful and Hawks took the 4-nil lead into the break.

Barrow was, however, able to add another six points in the 53rd minute when he caught the Wolves’ defence napping with a run from dummy-half to score a try before converting himself.

But Workies got back to within a converted try six minutes later when five-eighth Johnathan Van Veen meandered across field before somehow finding a gap to cross for a try when it seemed as though the Lithgow attack was going nowhere.

Hawks then gave the visitors ample opportunities to draw level in the final 20 minutes.

They made a whopping seven errors in the last quarter of the match, with most of them coming on their own line.

But Workies’ attack couldn’t capitalise, Hawks holding on for a well-earned six-point victory.

ORANGE HAWKS 10 (Trent Morgan, Todd Barrow tries; Barrow goal) def LITHGOW WORKIES 4 (Johnathan Van Veen try).