Deniliquin opened the scoring with a penalty goal after five minutes as the Fighting Miners lost early field position due to a series of penalties.

Bendigo struck back hard to score the opening try of the season following some good strong running from the back line and follow up work from the forwards.

Half-back Steve MacDonald passed to prop Nick Poingdestre who crashed over to score the first try.

The Fighting Miners scored again soon after when a strong 25 metre run by Shane Fagavao resulted in a pass to his brother Johneen Fagavao, who crossed cross the line to score in the corner. This opened up a 10-3 lead.

The Drovers struck back soon after with a try of their own, when Bendigo was caught out wide with a Deniliquin overlap. Bendigo’s lead was just two points.

From there the Fighting Miners took control of the first half with continual domination of the lineout, with Nick Denhert controlling the set piece and stealing all of the Deniliquin ball.

This fed a hungry Bendigo backline, which continually broke the line to make good yardage. Next to score was five-eight John Jefferies who received a good offload from Johneen, who made another strong run, breaking tackles and avoiding several Deniliquin defenders in gaining very good yardage.

Bendigo soon after was deep into the Drovers’ defensive end of the field and Jesse Tuitupou crashed over to seal the four-try bonus point after several good hit ups from the Bendigo forwards.

In the second-half Bendigo continued its scoring control.

After a strong scrum the Bendigo backline ran a set move to perfection and Jefferies crossed the try line with hardly a defender laying a hand on him.

Johneen scored again soon after with another blistering solo tackle breaking run.

Deniliquin gained some good field position and tested the Bendigo defence for quite a period of time, but the home side eventually cleared the ball deep down the field.

From there the Fighting Miners exerted prolonged attacking pressure.

Eventually the Drover defence crumbled and veteran Mark Luatutu scored out wide to make the final score 39-8.

Best players for Bendigo were Matt Roche, Johneen Fagavao, Nick Dehnert, John Jefferies, Steve Macdonald.

Next week Bendigo is away to defending champions Border Army.