Departing fullback Peter Hewat presented Central Coast Rays with the best possible leaving present and filled a gap in his personal portfolio by steering the team to a 20-12 win over Melbourne Rebels in Saturday's Australian Rugby Championship final.

Hewat, who leaves on Monday to start a three-year contract with English Premier division side London Irish, scored all but five of his team's points at BlueTongue Stadium.

"It's a great feeling, I haven't won a senior final before, so to win my first senior final and leave on Monday, I'm going to get on the plane a pretty happy guy," Hewat said.

The Rays notched up their sixth straight victory, but were made to work hard by a feisty Melbourne outfit.

Renowned for their high scoring, Central Coast also showed their defensive mettle by absorbing tremendous pressure in the second half.

Melbourne led 7-0 early on and paid the penalty for not carving out a larger advantage, as they missed some golden opportunities.

"It's pretty easy from the box up there where the space was, but unfortunately the players lacked a bit of vision at times in attack," Melbourne coach Bill Millard said.

"They did enough to get themselves into the game and we just made a couple of crucial mistakes."

Hewat scored his side's last 15 points after flanker Beau Robinson scored a critical try for the Rays.

Hooker James Hanson sprinted almost 30 metres to score a ninth minute try for Melbourne.

Hewat converted Robinson's try and kicked a penalty, before adding seven more points in the 39th minute when he converted his own try.

Up 17-7 at the break, the Rays missed a number of chances in the third quarter to put the game beyond the Rebels' reach.

Melbourne poured on the pressure in the final quarter but couldn't find a way through impressive Rays defence until the 65th minute.

Three minutes after referee Matt Goddard sin-binned Rays winger Andrew Smith following persistent breakdown infringements and penalties against the home team , Melbourne skipper and flanker David Croft burrowed over from a tap penalty close to the line.

However, the sterling efforts of man of the match Croft were not fully rewarded, as Melbourne centre and goal kicker Jack Farrer had his conversion attempt charged down by lively Rays flanker Ross Duncan.

Hewat kicked a 69th minute penalty to swell the Rays advantage to eight and his only miss of the day with another late penalty attempt proved irrelevant.

Among spectators at the game was local Central Coast product and Wallaby's back Adam Ashley-Cooper.

"I wouldn't have missed this for the world," said Ashley-Cooper.

Hewat is set to play his first game for London Irish next Sunday against competition leader Gloucester.

"It's going to be sad to leave, I've had some great memories, it's just been a dream come true to play for NSW and have reasonable success," Hewat said.

With 636 points from 50 games, Hewat is second on the NSW all-time point scorers list behind Matt Burke.

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