THE BOYS are back in town after some valiant Grand Finals efforts by the Myall River Hawks U13s and U16s, with both games played near Belmont on Saturday 14 September.

On their way out of town, the two Hawks boys teams, as well as the girls U15s Tackle team, were treated to a line-up of name placards posted all the way down the Myall Way installed by a small team of ardent Hawks supporters.

The U16s played their season-long nemeses, the Thornton Beresfield Bears, in their fourth and final head-to-head of the year, the last one being a semi-final played only two weeks prior.

With Grand Final glory on the line it was a day of disappointment for the Hawks, going down 24-10 to a strong Bears outfit.

Despite the result, the Hawks should take great solace in recalling the difference between this final and their first match-up, way back in mid-June, which had a much more one-sided result.

“They dug deep but didn’t come through,” Leah Saunders from Myall River Hawks told NOTA.

“They have come a long way from, at one stage, looking like they weren’t going to even have a team,” she said.

The U16s finished second on the overall ladder, behind the Bears only on ‘points for/against’.

End-of-season leaderboards for Top Tries saw Braydan Talaba at second (13 tries), Logue White at seventh (six tries), Lachlan De Lacy Peek and Blake Matheson at eighth (five tries), and Sam Alchin ninth (four tries).

Top Points ladder leaders from the Hawks were Deegan Ingram at third with 62 points, and Braydan Talaba at fifth with 52 points.

By Thomas O’KEEFE