By Tallon Smith

The Yenda Blueheelers celebrated their centenary in style with a hard fought 34-24 win over the Griffith Black and Whites at Wade Park on Saturday afternoon.

The win capped off a full day of festivities to mark the occasion, with club supporters and past players turning out in droves to see the victory, which was followed by a dinner at the Yoogali Club.

Yenda Assistant Coach Jordon Burley said that the match was a great contest, with the Blueheelers having to fight hard for the win.

“It was a great contest, Black and Whites came out and probably had the run on us early, the first 10 or 15 [minutes] they were very strong,” he said.

“To our credit, our defence held them out as well as they could, and once we actually got a bit of ball and completed some sets we looked good.”

One big advantage for the Yenda side was the atmosphere surrounding the event, not just on the day, but also the night prior.

“It was unreal, we had a training on Friday night where we did a bit of video and history on some of our old premierships, [then] we went back to the pub with a few of the old boys,” Burley said.

“The atmosphere today was just unbelievable, it was awesome to see, we had quite a big rollup of old boys there, and to get the win in front of them was unreal.”

As for the Yenda side’s chances in the competition overall, Burley said that the Blueheelers believe they are good enough if they can execute their game plan each week.

“It’s whoever turns up on the day at the moment,” he said.

“We’re really confident that our best football is good enough to beat anyone on the last day.

“We just know we need to keep working on a few things, get a few errors out of our game, and we’ll back ourselves in with the game plan and the players we’ve got.”

Around the grounds in other games over the weekend, West Wyalong defeated arch rivals TLU 22-20 in the ‘Northern Derby’, Waratahs beat Hay 48-10, and Leeton accounted for Yanco-Wamoon 42-8 in their Reserves only local derby.

Next weekend sees Waratahs host TLU, Hay tackle Leeton, Black and Whites travel to West Wyalong, and Yanco-Wamoon face DPC in Reserves at Narrandera before the Proten Community Cup finals.