The Maitland change rooms were silent for several minutes following the game, but it was just the response coach Matt Thomas hoped and knew his team would have.

"The fact that the change room is absolutely gutted is a good sign, it's a positive sign going forward," Thomas said.

"I think that's why the change rooms are so quiet at the moment, they are gutted because that they lost the game, not that Hamilton won it.

"The belief is building. In these big games you have to play for 80 minutes and we had lapses when we didn't.

"It's a really positive learning curve for our players moving forward.

"When we do play we can stick with these top teams but we don't want to stick with them we want to get over the top of them and keep putting our foot down. That's the learning curve for us."

Blacks captain Carl Manu said injuries and errors at a couple of critical times had cost the Blacks in the second half after they led 22-21 at half-time.

" A team like Hamilton you have to turn up for the full 80 minutes," Manu said.

"We had a good first half, but some errors and then some injuries meant we had to reshuffle a bit.

"It was good to see where we are at. We've got a couple of weeks to fix up those areas, a week off with the bye and then we should go in strong into the play-offs.

"The boys should not be surprised how well we went, that's how we should be playing. This week was about giving a lot more of an effort whether in attack or in defence.

"It was working, obviously in the second half we got hit with a few injuries and a few errors and that recast things.

"Take the good out of it, fix the areas we need to address and if we can do that we are going to be all right."

The Blacks were possibly unlucky not to lead by more at the break with tries to Manu, Michael Howell and Dale Clacherty scoring the first of his double.

Maitland's scrum was dominant and the backs were linking well with the platform laid by their forwards.

"Our ball skills were really great today. Our defence in patches was really, really good. We defended for long periods of time and as a club we've got depth and we showed that today with a number of second graders coming in," Thomas said.

"We'll learn from this, but we've got to start giving lessons as well. If we want to win it we have to give lessons not learn them.

"Our main game plan was to hold the ball for long times and we struggled to do that at times. We gave away some easy option pill to them. If we keep that in it changes the game, we just need to do it for 80 minutes."

Thomas said the Blacks forward pack were reaping the rewards for all the hard work they had done on their scrum.

"We've worked hard. That's a lot of hard work on technique. At times the boys are really busting on the scrum machine and in one-on-one stuff at training."

"It's hard when you are the dominant scrum and you get one or two penalties after 10 dominant scrums, but they have one and we get penalised straight away.

"I don't understand the sequence of it, but this is the luck we've got to create. I don't want to make excuses any more we've got to create our own luck.

"When you are on a winning edge luck goes your way. They have that and we need to create it."