The hits were harder, the tackles stuck faster and the runs were more incisive.

But when centre Gary Anderson rushed off the line, stripped the ball from Lakes halfback Floyd Tighe and then dragged three opponents 10 metres to score - it was certain - the Pickers' mojo was back.

The Pickers playing group as a collective knew they had in them, but it took some hard and honest conversations in the wake of the 20-16 loss to The Entrance to identify what they needed to do to rediscover it.

"To the players' credit, the coaches had nothing to do with this week," Maitland coach Matt Lantry said after the game.

"From full-time last week against The Entrance they closed the door, the staff went out, and the boys had a chat between themselves. They identified a few things they needed to be better at and to their credit this week has been player driven.

"The last three weeks haven't been our best, but we some hard, honest conversations that needed to be had. As hard as that sometimes was we drew a line in the sand on Thursday and we actioned what we talked about during the week."

When it comes to action speaking louder than words Gary Anderson is at the front of the line and his response was spectacular.

But more importantly it was tough, uncompromising footy on the back of sustained team pressure which had won the battle for field position in the first seven minutes and forced the Seagulls to come off their own line.

The Pickers ran out 28-10 winners but it was a real test of strength and resolve which belied the first and ninth ranking of the two teams.

After Anderson's opening try, the Seagulls scored next in the 16^th minute when Tighe kicked early, in another set from deep within their own half, and a favourable bounce left Pickers fullback Matt Soper-Lawler facing multiple players to shut down.

Soper-Lawler pulled off a remarkable tackle but with numbers in their favour Lakes were able to barge across in the next play through winger Cahleb Faulkner.

Stung by the against the play score, the Pickers defence held Lakes out again until the 79^th minute when after back-to-back penalties Tighe crossed for an unconverted try.

In between there were tries to Maitland's Chad O'Donnell, James Bradley, Reed Alchin and Soper-Lawler. Halfback Brock Lamb's kicking was superb landing four of five conversions with three close to the sideline.

"It was a really nice response, the pleasing thing was the intent with which we did things. We can be better but the contact was some of the best I have seen consistently over the 80 minutes for a long time," Lantry said of his side's performance.

"We had some harsh, honest, truthful conversations through the course of the week and I'm really happy for them to see the way they played physically, the intent they had and the desire they had to compete and work for each other.

"Lakes are a good football team, they are heading in the right direction, they are well coached and we knew they wouldn't go away.

"That's why I was even more impressed as we didn't take our foot off the accelerator. Lakes continued to challenge us. I think we turned them away five times on our goal-line with five back-to-back sets.

"That's what this team is built on, the desire to work for each other defensively."

Prop Daniel Ticehurst, who got through a mountain of work, won the coaches award and Anderson was players' player.

The Pickers first grade players wore the socks of junior clubs East and West Maitland, Morpeth, Thornton-Beresfield and Dungog. Junior players from the four clubs played at breaks between games and at half-time.

There were some really gutsy wins by the Pickers in the earlier games with an under-manned Maitland reserve grade team bolstered by the inclusion of several under-19s running out 36-12 winners after trailing 12-6 just before the half-time break.

Back-rower Justin Norris won the coaches and players' player award.

The under-19s, who were without several promoted players including forward Noah Nailagoliva who was playing first grade, went down 22-6 to a very talented Lakes side.

Lock Justin Schmidhauser won the players' player and coaches awards

But the biggest effort was by the Ladies League Tag team who fielding the bare minimum 11 players managed to overcome a 12-0 half-time deficit to defeat University 14-12.

The team was missing eight players as well as coach Logan Redman who were away at the NSW Oztag titles in Coffs Harbour.

Trainer Craig Ballenden, who stepped in as coach, said it was an incredible win to keep their unbeaten record intact.

"They had no reserves and all 11 girls just had to play through. It was really an amazing effort to come back from a 12-0 deficit and then get up right at the end," Ballenden said.

Haley Shaw won the coaches award and shared the players' player award with Amy Defour.