After six straight wins, the Spacemen travelled to play Orange Hawks in high spirits but they were kept scoreless for roughly 70 minutes and were ultimately beaten 26-12.

"I think we have let the guard down a little bit, we have a couple of times with these crossover games," Creith said post-match.

"And I could feel it a little bit before the game during warm-up, but I didn't see that one coming to be honest."

Parkes' run of form had them in second spot in the Group 11 pool prior to Sunday while Hawks entered the match outside Group 10's top four after three successive losses.

But, much to the delight of coach and two-time NRL premiership winner Shane Rodney, Hawks were able to fill a fit and firing 17 for the first time in a number of weeks.

New Fijian recruits Marika Turagaiviu and Waqasaqa Qiolevu are also settling in and both impressed in their third games for the club on Sunday.

READ MORE:

After an even start to the match - where Parkes bombed a number of try-scoring chances - it was Turagaiviu who opened the scoring.

Ryan Manning's conversion made it 6-0 after 12 minutes and he kicked a penalty soon after to extend the lead.

With Parkes in need of something and prop Jesse Shorter left bloodied after a suspected elbow, hulking Fijian Bati squad member Tikoko Noke was thrown into the fray.

He immediately made an impact and got Parkes into try-scoring territory with his running game but again it came to nothing.

But, in a moment that summed up Parkes' performance on Sunday, Noke was sin-binned after a late shot in a Hawks move that led to Turagaiviu grabbing his second try.

"We did frustrate them a little bit and they did come up with a lot of errors," Rodney said, the score being 12-0 at the break.

"But to our boys' credit, they were forcing a lot of those errors too, so - I think our boys can take a fair bit out of that as well."

Just minutes into the second half Hawks grabbed the momentum again when Qiolevu snaffled an intercept and ran 80m to put his side in attacking territory.

Ben Blimka scored soon after a Manning's conversion and another penalty goal from the fullback soon after had the hosts in complete control.

With 11 minutes to full-time, Parkes got a whiff of points for the first time in the game.

A short chip from Dwyer, and a quick inside pass back from Creith led to Brandon Paige getting the ball over the line.

Followed by Chad Porter's successful conversion, the scoreboard read a more dignified 20-6.

Though, Hawks immediately returned a serve - with Qiolevu's pass to winger Chris Anderson, followed by Manning's greenlight kick, taking the boys to 26-6.

With a mere minute to go, however, Spacemen made one last attack, ending in Dwyer's try and another good conversion from Porter - leaving the board to read 26-12 in Orange Hawks' favour at the full-time whistle.

"It always hurts immediately, but sometimes you need a loss," Parkes' Creith said.

"Six [wins] in a row, you start to feel pretty good about yourselves so you might not train as hard, you might not do what you should throughout the week. Maybe it's a little wake-up call to get back to what we were doing good."

As delighted as he was with the win, Rodney knows his side still has plenty to do in the final four rounds as they remain outside the Group 10 top four.

"I know [Spacemen have] been going really well the last six to eight weeks and we spoke about that leading into today," he said.

"It was all about our performance, we had a fresh team coming in and they had good game plan - I thought our boys were the better team today.

"We're not too nave, we know it's only one win and it gets us back on track a little bit - but they need to build on this now, because if they don't back it up next week, then it doesn't mean a lot.

"When I spoke to the team [after the game], I said enjoy the win, it was good ... but we need to move forward to next week and they need to take what they did today and do better again next week. So, building on this momentum and hopefully, they can do that."

Send a letter to the editor using the form below.