The Pirates dominated the first half taking a 12-0 lead and made short work of the Barbarian's defence.

After the break the "rugby boot was on the other foot" as the Barbarians crawled back with an early try within the first 10 minutes of the second half and then kept the Pirates scoreless throughout, with the final score ending in a magnificent Barbarians win of 21-12.

Pirate's stalwart David Thomas commended his team for their first game back of the season and for digging deep when the going got tough.

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"We were in the game until the end and considering it was our first game back and kept the Barbarians score relatively low shows that our team has the potential gaul for the season." Mr Thomas said.

Barbarian's Captain, Clinton St Clair again praised his team-mates for the stoic effort.

"We thought we were goners at the end of the first half. We had an excellent half-time pep-talk from our coach Paddy Kelly which really inspired us and like true Barbarians," he said.

"We came into the second half with an unbelievable amount of mongrel, the likes I've never seen in our team for a long time since Luke MacFarlane used to play for us.

"We not only held the Pirates back in the second half, but we were also able to capitalise on some of their simple mistakes and get some quality meat pies (tries)."

Tries from the Barbarians in the second half were scored by Clinton St Clair, Jardyn Dillon and Harley Byers. Robbie Campbell successfully converted the Barbarians tries.

Barbarian's President Marc Gardner noted: "It was a really good win, to have back to back wins at the start of the Katherine Rugby Union Season sets us up well to continue right through with our goal to take out the premiership."

"Thanks again to Mal Roney for voluntarily refereeing the game and Nick Freney, Maddi Staff and Jack Morrison helping officiate the game. Without these volunteers helping out each week, our competition would be unfeasible, so a big thumbs up to these people" Mr Gardner said.

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