“We probably played a bit below our ability and had trouble hanging onto the ball. We were lucky to get away with the win in the end,” Bremner said.

“A bit of fitness got us across the line at the end. We’re reasonably fit, though there’s always more to be done. Match fitness will get us there in the long run.

“Walcha are struggling for numbers this year and to their credit they played very, very well. They’ve got a lot of good players and a very good attitude, they never, ever lie down, so yeah, we were lucky in the end to get away with it.”

Bremner said the Inverell Rugby Club’s Men’s Mental Health Awareness Day, which was hosted by the Highlanders at Rugby Park on Saturday went very well.

“It was good and went off very well. We had Adam Marshall and Kevin Humphries in attendance, and Fiona Livingstone from SCARF was there and she spoke very well at the post-match speeches,” Bremner said.

He said the function was attended by about 300 people.

“The club was very happy with that. It was more to get the message out that there are support groups, and things like that, out there,” he said.

“We had good weather, a good crowd and just everyone having fun.” 

The next round of the competition will be played in a fortnight’s time at Scone, which Bremner admits is a fair bit of travel for the team.

“They had another win on the weekend, a close one against Barraba, so we’ll have to be at the top of our game,” he said.

“It’s a long road trip down there so we’ll have to play better than we did last weekend to win down there.”

“We’ll work towards it, we’ve got to sharpen up on our game-plan, but once we do that we’ll be right, I think.”