The Hawks suffered their first 'scoreboard' loss of the season on Sunday when going down 6-0 to Leeton United in the major semi-final at Rawlings Park.

The loss puts Henwood Park into a sudden-death preliminary final clash with defending premiers, Hanwood, who kept their season alive with a 2-0 win over Young.

An honest Elphick said it was up to the Henwood Park playing group when asked if he was confident that his team could bounce back next week.

"We'll see," Elphick replied.

"I'm just being honest.

"Yeah, if we can actually play like we did in the second half, we'll be right. I told the boys all week, and for the last four weeks, we've got to play our style of football and in the first half, we didn't football at all. They came out and made us pay. If we don't play our style, look what happens."

Henwood Park defeated Hanwood 4-3 in the opening game of the season. The Hawks shot out to a 3-0 lead before holding off a late charge from the Griffith team.

Elphick knows Sunday's preliminary final won't be easy.

"That's a hard game," he said.

"It is what it is. We'll see what happens."

Elphick was disappointed with the way his team performed on the big stage on Sunday.

Leeton United found themselves 3-0 up inside 34 minutes and Elphick blasted his players for not following the game plan.

"You play football, you win football," he said.

"It is (disappointing), but as I've said to the guys for the last four weeks and I said it in the paper on Friday, you watch those four guys and we would have had them. Did they watch them? No they didn't.

"It's not good to say but we deserved to lose."

Fred Gardner and Adam Raso both scored doubles in the win, while Henri Gardner and Conor Edenen also found the back of the net in the 6-0 rout.

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