After losing their opening two games on the back of the loss of some key players over the off-season, Henwood Park's campaign had not got off to a great start.

But that all changed in the space of 45 minutes on Sunday, as the Hawks ran over the top of Wagga United for a morale-boosting victory.

Wagga United held a 2-1 lead at half-time but were put immediately under the pump when Liam Brown was red carded 10 minutes into the second half.

Henwood Park managed to get going and got better as the game went on, piling on four goals in the final 15 minutes to cement the result.

Henwood Park coach Chris Hart was relieved to get win number one on the board.

"I definitely breathed a sigh of relief that I've got the first win done," Hart said.

"It was more so the hunger from everyone that they didn't want to lose another game.

"We definitely played far more to our potential today."

Lewis Crowley scored twice, Naser Smoqy scored his first first grade goal, while Cam Weir, Matt Cain and Bailey Hart all got on the board, along with an own goal.

Hart said the message at half-time was to maintain their intensity. It worked, as the Hawks piled on a six-goal second half.

"With the start to our season we've had, the message at half-time was that we're in it, and we can't have a second half lapse, we need to stay on it and we can come out and win it," he said.

"That we kept them to two goals was good as well. We're still working our way to a clean sheet but it's better than five. We've just been letting too many goals in so it was good to improve that.

"Our front three created a lot of options and the second half clean sheet was a good sign for the defensive line."

Henwood Park 7 d Wagga United 2

Hanwood 2 d Lake Albert 0

South Wagga 3 d Young 1

Tolland 4 d Tumut 1

Cootamundra v Leeton game deferred

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