The Blayney Bears fondly remembered their missing halfback Terry Brown on Sunday and defeated the Cowra Magpies 28-20 in a Group 10 round one thriller at King George Oval.
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Prior to kick-off, the Blayney Bears lower grades and members of the Orange City Rugby Union Club - a club Brown was a premiership winner with in 2014 - took to the field where they, along with the premier league sides, united for a touching and emotional minute's silence.
Spectators stood and paid they respect while also anticipating an electric contest between the two towns.
Both side's swapped tries in the opening 40 minutes but it was Blayney who claimed a four-point advantage following captain-coach Dane Howarth's try on the siren and an early brace to Josh Rainbow.
Two back-to-back tries in the second half fired the Bears in favour of a 24-10 scoreline with 20 minutes remaining but two tries to the Magpies, the first in the 65th minute and second in the 75th minute, reduced the deficit to four.
Cowra lost possession inside the Bears half with what was probably their final opportunity and the home side sealed the win from the scrum when Howarth broke the line and found speedster Carter Hirini who ran 70m.
"Great way to kick off the season against a quality side, I watched Cowra in the [Bathurst] Knockout and they got the first round win their. All respect to them they came out strong today it could of went either way but I think our defence won it," Blayney captain Dane Howarth said before talking about the loss of Terry Brown.
"It's been very emotional for the boys there's a lot of us who have played with Terry for the last three years and he's like a brother to some us and losing him was very emotional but the boys played with their heart on their sleeve it was great.
"I was pretty happy with our attack at the end of the first half we stayed to our game-plan and our structure was good. Our discipline was a big let down so it was a good thing we worked on our defence in the off season."
Cowra opened the scoring in the sixth minute when winger Caley Mok crossed with ease on the left edge before Bears full-back Rainbow grabbed his first of two for the day and the scores were 4-all after 15 minutes.
The visitors went ahead again in the 28th minute following a nice play between player-coach Rory Brien and Mitch Browne who gathered a kick behind the defence and placed the ball down for their second four-pointer.
Rainbow, though, claimed his second rounding up a banana kick from Matty Fuller but again failed to convert.
With only seconds remaining Howarth crashed over next to the post and Blayney went into the sheds with a 14-10 lead.
Two tries after the break to Ryan Oborn sent the home side racing to a 14-point advantage but Mok scored his second thanks a desperate dive on the wing and Ronald Lawrence barged under the posts to bring Cowra back to within four points.
A late runaway try to Hirini, making his debut for the Bears, confirmed Blayney's round one win.
"They didn't beat us we beat ourselves there was a lot of simple errors, it was terrible at times and every time we got some good ball we panicked," Cowra's Rory Brien said.
"I said to the boys before we went out that completions would win the game and that's something we didn't do I'd love to have a stat on what we completed because it would of been terrible.
"They [Blayney] were okay I didn't think they were anything special but they deserved to win today but I'm sure when we play them again we'll be a different team."
Blayney Bears 28 (Josh Rainbow, Ryan Oborn 2, Dane Howarth and Carter Hirini tries; Lachlan Hobby 2 conv.) defeated Cowra Magpies 20 (Caley Mok 2, Mitch Browne, Ronald Lawrence tries; Mok 2 conv.)
