HAMILTON have a shot at history. No team in the Newcastle and Hunter Rugby Union has ever won five straight premierships.
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But you won't hear a word about it out of the Hawks camp. Not yet anyway.
"We already have a target on our back," Hamilton coach Scott Coleman said after they shut out Lake Macquarie 15-0 at a rain-soaked Passmore Oval on Saturday. "We don't want to stoke that fire with any cheap talk. It is a tight competition. At our pre-season boot camp, we spoke about how everyone would be against us. Any little whisper we let out gets magnified 30-fold in Newcastle. We want to be as humble as we can."
A fifth title maybe a taboo subject at Passmore Oval, but after their "most disrupted pre-season in six years" the Hawks look every bit premiership favourites. They have climbed to the top of the table approaching the halfway point of the season. Their only glitch, a 24-12 defeat to Wanderers.
"If you said to me at the start of the comp that we would be here, I would have taken it," Coleman said. "We are happy but we still think we can build more. I keep saying it: the competition is so tight this year. We are under no illusions. I think anyone in the top six can win it."
A super-charged Lake Macquarie shape as one of the teams to challenge Hamilton. They began Saturday with an identical record - five wins and a loss - but by full-time it was clear the Roos need a dry track and a much improved scrum if they are to end the Hawks' reign.
The boggy conditions looked made to order for the giant Roos pack. But a 15-1 penalty count against, a scrum in reverse and a slippery ball, which made off-loads high risk, resulted in the visitors spending much of the first half defending.
Adding to the Roos' task, captain Jarrod Nyssen (late tackle) and Josh Wendell Wilson (repeated scrum infringements) were sent to the sinbin.
Incredibly, they went to the break trailing only 7-0 after No.8 Joe Akkersdyk dived on the ball from the back of a five-metre scrum in the 13th minute.
The second half was a duplicate of the first, only the rain got heavier.
Metre-by-metre the Hawks ground Lake Macquarie into the mud.
"We stressed the importance of playing to the corners," Coleman said. "If nothing is on, I said box kick it, travel 30 metres down the field and go again. We wanted to keep turning them around."
Eventually, the flood of possession took its toll in the 53rd minute. From a five metre lineout, the Hawks drove a maul and Liam Bowden emerged from a pile of bodies with the ball under his arm and smile on his face. Fly-half Connor Mullhearn missed the extras but added a penalty five minutes later.
Lake Macquarie scrambled well and still had sting in their defence late in the game, but they didn't have enough possession to build any momentum.
"We got stuck in our own half and they applied a lot of pressure there," Roos player coach Gareth Palamo said.
"You can't afford for the penalty count to go against you. On top of that, we had a few cards. Regardless of who you play, it will be a struggle."
