Lithgow Bears travelled to Portland's Kremer Park to take on the Fillies and Colts on Saturday, May 4.
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It was the first official week of the New Era Cup kicking off a double header between CSU and Orange Barbarians and Lithgow Bears and Portland Colts and Fillies.
The Lithgow Bears' league tag side kicked off at 12.45pm, Portland opened the scoring but soon after Bears winger Jessie Lutschini made a break and went over the try line. Monique Millmore converted the try.
It remained six all for the majority of the first half with Portland scoring again just before half time.
The second half saw the Fillies put down another try in the last dying minutes.
The Bears held their defence line as best they could, improving from last weeks game against CSU Yellow, and despite losing 16-6 to Portland, coach Greg Smith and his team were proud of their match performance.
Players player went to Kaitlyn McLaughlin and best and fairest was awarded to Monique Millmore.
Millmore also received three points from the crowd, Lutschini received two and Brittany Dowler gained one.
Lutschini also received two points from the referee.
In the Bears' rugby league match against the Portland Colts saw the men take a first round loss of 50-10.
Bears coach Blake Collins said despite the loss he was quite confident that with a little bit of discipline and some more defensive practice at training, the team could bounce back.
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"It's only the first round anything can happen, we are a new team and we are still learning to gel together and get that defensive line right but that will come throughout the season with some hard training sessions," he said.
Collins said he was also impressed with some of the new players' efforts with Paul Traish and Nathan Annetts taking hit after hit putting their bodies on the line.
"I'm just really impressed with how the whole team never gave up and they all put in effort for the whole game," he said.
Ryan Bilby and Austin King were also stand out players returning to the game.
King scored the Bears' only two tries of the match on his debut game as a 17 year-old.
He also received players player and three points from the crowd.
Traish shared in players player and also received two points from the crowd. Nathan Annetts recieved one point.
Best and fairest who went to Ben Beecroft who committed to all the tackles he went in on as hooker.
The Bears will host their first home game of the season on Saturday, May 11 at Tony Luchetti Sportsground against Orange Barbarians.
League tag will kick off at 1pm followed by Rugby League at 2.30pm.
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