MAITLAND coach Luke Cunningham has been telling the Blacks since the start of pre-season that they are as good as any team in Hunter Rugby Union.
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Now they have a result to back the coach's words up.
Maitland scored 17 unanswered points in the second half and then hung on to beat Hamilton 27-22 at Marcellin Park on Saturday.
"That is the first time since I have taken over that we have knocked over one of the top-three teams," said Cunningham, who is in his second season in charge. "For the last two months, we have talked about how we have the personnel to match these teams.
"The result is great in terms of the table but, for me, the real value is the confidence it will give our playing group. They now have a result to show they can match it with the top teams. You could tell by the way they walked off the field that there was a sense of relief to finally get the monkey off the back."
The scores were locked at 10-all after a rugged first half.
Then the Blacks took control. Fly-half Pat Batey landed a penalty, then took an intercept to race 40 metres and score under the sticks. Aiden Procopis flew down the sideline to make it 27-10.
"It was a great game of footy. A real physical affair," Cunningham said. "We got out to a good lead in the second half and the boys clocked off a bit. We had three or four who had been off work all week with the flu and I think a few packed up shop in about the 75th minute.
"Discipline was the big thing. It has been a killer for us, especially around the breakdown."
Although happy with the attack, Cunningham said the Blacks defence set up the win.
They didn't commit many bodies at the breakdown. Instead they, fanned out and concentrated on getting up off the line reduce the space for the Hawks runners.
"Defensively we went into the game with the plan to leave the breakdown," Cunningham said. "That is where we were getting crucified penalty-wise. The bigger thing was getting our defensive line set and taking their space. The fact we had that wall of defence constantly in front of them, cut down their options. We forced them into errors."
Seva Rokaboro and Josh Armstrong had strong debuts in the Hamilton pack.
"That Hamilton pack is tough. There are some monsters in there," Cunningham said. "Sam Callow and Harry Chapman played great. They really stood up and took control of our pack. I thought the two centres Chris Logan and Caileb Gerrard played really well. Hammo have a good backline with some talented ball players and they really aimed up."
At Rugby Park, hooker Brady Hay scored two tries as Singleton recorded their first win, overrunning Lake Macquarie 40-27.
"The Roos had their tails up for a bit, but we managed to hang in there," Singleton coach Tim Partridge said. "Campbell Harris on debut at nine had a really good game and Brady Hay scored a couple of tries with nice footwork in traffic."
In the other game, Nelson Bay won a slugfest with University 22-13 at Bill Strong Oval to retain the Ben Clarke Shield.