In a tough contest, it was Darlington Point Coleambally who came out on top over the Griffith Black and Whites.

Despite the home ground advantage for the Roosters all of the Area News tipsters went for the Griffith side and were proved wrong thanks to the performance of Drew Hopwood.

The hooker received praise from his coach in his return after a few years away.

The grand final rematch lived up to the hype with the game remaining in the balance before Tullibigeal Lake Cargelligo secured the history repeating win in their coach, James Williams, first game in charge.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good in the return to Group 20 with the game between Yenda and Griffith Waratah Tigers ending in unfortunate circumstances.

After a fight broke out on the field and then spilt into the crowd saw the game called off early with Yenda holding a 28-14 lead with 15 minutes to go.

Next week Leeton will take on Black and Whites, Darlington Point Coleambally will return to Coly to take on Hay, Waratahs get their home season underway against Yanco Wamoon while TLU will return home to take on Yenda.

With the local competition still a couple of weeks away the Riverina Rhinos have been flying the flag.

When the fixtures were announced it was always going to be a tough start to the season and it has shown to be true.

Two heavy losses to Canberra FC and then Belconnen United sees the Rhinos sitting at the bottom of the National Premier League table.

After the winter break, they will look to break both their goal and points ducks when they head on two trips to Canberra to take on Woden Weston and Tuggeranong United with the coach, Ross Morgan hoping his side can reproduce a performance similar to the first 45 against Canberra FC.

The region's two Farrar League teams had tough starts to the season. Barellan were forced to take the positives from a tough loss to North Wagga where they fell by 61 points.

Mitch Hawker was the sole representative in the player of the year votes picking up one point.

For Coleambally they fell in the Grand final rematch to East Wagga by 22 points with chances not help by too late withdrawals.

Both Tom Morton and Corbon O’Malley picked up two points each in the Player of the Year votes.

Following the tight loss to Wagga Ag the Griffith Blacks will be looking to bounce back in their game against Albury.

The side was in the contest until the final minutes with the score ending on 28-24.

Albury will be without Rossouw Visser this week after the young lock was outed by the Southern Inland judiciary.

Visser was red carded late in the Steamers’ round one win over CSU for a tackle on Hamish McMahon.

Referee Mark Harris deemed the hit high and the judiciary panel found him guilty of the offence.