For Pirates that moment came on Saturday as Moree delivered the premiers their first loss in 32 games.

Ironically the Bulls own the record for consecutive wins courtesy of their remarkable 72-game undefeated run stretching from June 1998 through to June 2002.

Pirates coach Mat Kelly wasn’t too fussed by the 43-38 loss, or the end of their winning run and aspirations of an undefeated premiership season, commenting that they don’t plan on making a habit of it (losing).

“Time will tell but it could be a good thing. It’s a bit of a kick in the backside of the boys that think it’s just going to happen,” he said.

There was a sense going in that it was a danger game.

“We knew it would be a battle,” Kelly said.

Missing seven regular first graders, they were “horrible” early on he said, and subsequently playing catch-up.

“We got our second wind and finished the half well,” he said, although they did give away a “silly penalty” just before half-time.

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That was compounded when the Bulls scored within 10 seconds of the kick-off.

Counter-attack was where they really did the damage, as they turned around a 53-14 loss in Tamworth earlier in the season.

“They scored three tries of our kicks and our poor defence on kicks. They cut us straight to pieces,” Kelly said.

He attributed it to a combination of poor kicking, not enough urgency chasing through and not realigning quick enough in defence.

Aside from a few discipline slip-ups, which gave the Bulls “too much field position”, he was pretty happy with everything else, considering.

Winger Sam Bowden and Andrew Mepham both crossed twice for the visitors with Mepham also picking up the three points.

Conrad Starr got the two and Bart Leach the one, Kelly noting that half-back Jackson Sharpe was also “good for probably 75 minutes”.

Nic McCrohan also did well in his first start for 12 months after seeing 30 minutes against Quirindi the previous week.

In other games centre Luke Smith pursed four tries as Barraba held on for a 34-26 win over Quirindi after leading 29-nil at half-time, while Walcha accounted for Inverell 50-15 to move into fourth.