Country Championships: Colts triumph provides a highlight for New England

But both opens coach Niel Van Der Linde and colts counterpart Luke Stephen thought there were positives to take away, especially given the limited time together.

After being thumped by eventual Richardson Shield champions Mid North Coast 54-10 on Saturday, the Lions opens produced a much better performance in their third/fourth play-off against Central North on Sunday.

"They did well. Yesterday was hard because they didn't click well, but today (Sunday) was much better," Van Der Linde said.

READ ALSO:

He thought defensively particularly they were a lot better than Saturday.

"Yesterday the defence it was every man for himself, whereas today we actually started clicking and working as a team," he said.

The attack too was a lot better for the game "under their belt", having only had the one training session together.

After taking a bit more of a conservative approach to Saturday, Van Der Linde said for yesterday they said 'let's just play rugby and go for it'.

"There was a few handling errors, which was frustrating, a few tries lost, but they went well. They made some yards and scored some good tries," he said.

Pat Keen opened the scoring for the Kookaburras after some nice build-up.

Some quick hands then unleashed Sam Collett and he burst through and brushed off several defenders to make it 12-nil.

But the Lions hit back a couple of minutes later, winger Tom Condon burning the defence outwide.

Richie Hunt burrowed his way over from a penalty quick tap to push the Kookaburras back out to a 12-point advantage early in the second half. Andrew Moodie then muscled his way over to make it 26-7 with 23 to play.

It was the Lions though who had the final say of the game with fullback Brent Pedlow producing an electrifying run and bamboozling the Kookaburras defence from about 40m out.

The colts finished with just the one win from their four games, losing both their games on Sunday. But for them it was really about learning.

"There's no doubt there's some potential in this squad," Stephen said after their 13-10 win over the Dolphins on Saturday.

"With a limited prep, and for a lot of these guys their first opportunity at this level, there was always going to be some growing pains."

They almost blew it against Dolphins

After going down to 13 they then conceded a try to make it 10-all with a minute-and-a-half to go.

But a couple of scrum penalties clinched it for them with Grayson Te Moana stepping up and kicking a penalty after the bell.

"We knew coming into the championships that the forward pack was really strong," Stephen said.

"You've got guys like Mark Green, Campbell Williams, Walker Harrison and Cooper Johns that are all playing first grade for their club."

"It was great to see them be able to create those opportunities."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: