HAWKS UPDATE by Isaac Gleave

On a pelting, drenching Tuesday the Hawks resumed their season with a comeback 2-1 win at Tilbury in the FA Trophy.

It had been 15 days since Shaun Saunders’s side last strode out onto a pitch, and this break in momentum showed in an opening half that spluttered into life.

Dampened by the conditions, the hosts from the Isthmian League North opening the floodgates with a 20-yard fizzing, dipping, whirling effort that caught Luke Glover off guard as it soared into the saggy netting.

There was a lingering question mark hovering over Whitehawk following the loss of last season’s top-scorer Javaun Splatt, who moved along the coast to Worthing last week, but in the second half their shone a real salvation.

Fourteen minutes after the restart the Hawks had turned the game completely on its head: Charlie Lambert whacking one goalwards that spooned in over the gloves of Finley Thackaway, before Joe Shelley followed up with a header at the near post that lolloped into the opposite corner.

By now the rains were coming down with vicious velocity, and the surface slowed and squelched.

Yet the Hawks’ backline dealt with the danger, and booked their place in the next round of the FA Trophy with a venture to Corinthian set for Saturday, September 24.

Speaking after the game, Saunders was pleased to have secured a place in the next round of the competition: “Yeah, a good win, first and foremost. I didn’t think we were at our best, pitch was not great for both sides granted but we’ll take the win and get on our way.

“I felt that we were in control of the first half, but I was all positive at half time. We felt we could turn it around.” Saunders adds.