The Ringwood Hawks stumbled to their second loss of the season on Saturday night with a disappointing road performance against a hungry Eltham Wildcats.

It was an un-Ringwood like effort but the type of performance that the Hawks Coaching staff sensed was on the horizon and on Saturday night it arrived.

“Our attitude over the last few weeks has been poor and our training sessions have been lackluster.” Hawks Assistant Coach Damien Smith said.

“Eltham are definitely a team that would love to take advantage of that. And exactly what they did.”

Despite a solid start by the Hawks, the signs were worrying early as Eltham were scoring too easily and the Ringwood shooters were struggling to find open shooting opportunities. Jacob Gibson (25 points) managed to keep the Hawks in the game but the Wildcats just edged their way clear as half time arrived.

Whilst the game was still up for grabs late in the game, the Hawks never really showed enough urgency or aggression to challenge. Scottie Stone (20 points) and Shaun Clarke (15 points and 11 rebounds) battled hard but in reality the Hawks did not deserve to win the game.

A few nagging injuries to Matt Snow and Nate Truman did not help but the Hawks did have Max Sutton back in uniform for his first game of the season. Sutton will continue to improve as he works his way back in to game shape.

The loss is a wakeup call for the Hawks who have a massive three weeks ahead before the Queen’s Birthday bye weekend. There are four winnable games and Ringwood need to win all of them to consolidate their top spot on the BigV ladder.

Next Saturday night the Hawks will host the dangerous Hume City Broncos and this will be a game they are expected to win and must find the hunger they had earlier in the season. The Game will tip off at 8pm.

RINGWOOD HAWKS 89 (Gibson 25, Stone 20, Clarke 15. Osborne 10) lost to ELTHAM WILDCATS 98 at Eltham.