He commenced contesting the national lightweight single sculls title at the Australian Rowing Championships in 1990, coached by his father Stephen Hawkins Snr.

[1] In 1991 he beat out his Tasmanian rival Simon Burgess and claimed his first national lightweight championship in the single sculls.

[4] From 1989 to 1994 he was the Tasmanian state representative picked to race the President's Cup – the open heavyweight single scull – at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships.

[5] Hawkins first competed at a FISA event at the 1990 World Rowing Championships in his home state of Tasmania – in a lightweight quad scull with Burgess, Gary Lynagh and Bruce Hick.

Antonie, a veteran of 15 years of international competition was, like Hawkins a lightweight and they were respectively Australia's #1 and #2 ranked scullers ahead of the heavyweights Richard Powell and Jason Day.