The Glen Innes Elks began their New England Rugby Union season with success after toppling the Armidale Blues.
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Playing at home for the round one encounter, the Elks not only managed to field a team with reserves on the bench, but they landed a 30-point win.
Coach Sam Price said it was a tight start to the match but once the side found their feet, they stormed home for the victory.
"It wasn't a real reflection of the game to be honest, we scored a couple of late tries," he said.
"It was 7-all at half-time and was a really close game.
"A bit flustered, we looked like we wanted to score off every play to start with.
"It took us just about two-thirds of the game to settle down which is to be expected being the first game.
"It showed us some things to work on, there are a few technical aspects we haven't had the opportunity to do much with."
Price credited the forward pack with laying the platform for the speedsters to score points.
"We seem to have quite a large forward pack this year," he said.
"When the forwards held the ball in tight they made pretty good metres around pillar and post.
"They were able to set pretty good platforms for the backs.
"When the ball went to hand out wide to the backs the boys finished it off pretty well."
After struggling to put together a reserves bench throughout 2018, it was a nice relief for the Elks to have back up on Saturday.
"We had 17 players so it helped having a bench," Price said.
"There was a couple of blokes, a bit of fitness, I could rotate players pretty regularly."
Price said there were typical round one-style mistakes but they will work on eliminating them throughout the season.
As for this Saturday's round two match-up against the Barbarians in Armidale, Price isn't sure what his line-up is going to look like.
"We didn't travel very well to start with last year," he said.
"There was a number of games we had with low numbers so hopefully we can get a good number of blokes to the game on Saturday.
"It will be an interesting week this week.
"If I can get the same team I had this weekend we are a good chance.
"It would be nice if we could get a bit more so we could rotate more and give everyone a breather."