Group 4: Ben Jarvis and Mitchell Sheridan captain North Tamworth Bears to thrilling win

But today, the veteran hooker was out due to personal commitments, and in his place stepped Ben Jarvis and Mitch Sheridan, who each took on co-captaincy roles.

While the Bears did not underestimate the threat posed by the Gunnedah Bulldogs, even after their mercy rule defeat to the Moree Boars last week, few expected that the two teams would produce what might become one of the matches of the year at Kitchener Park this afternoon.

"[Gunnedah are] a well-coached side by Mick [Schmiedel], he's been around a long time," Bears coach, Paul Boyce, said.

"We knew they were going to bounce back, they were disappointed and embarrassed after last week, so we knew it was going to be quite tough."

After Norths opened the scoring, Gunnedah roared back with two tries to take a 14-10 lead at half time.

Compared to the relative sloppiness of the opening stanza, both teams cranked up their discipline in the second half and cut down their errors to produce attritional, hard-hitting football which left spectators enthralled.

In the end, the Bears prevailed 26-20, but the scoreline didn't reflect how truly thin the margins were. North Tamworth gave everything they had to get the win, for which Jarvis was grateful.

"I'm just so proud of the boys and how they turned up today," he said.

Jarvis and Sheridan have played first grade with the club for roughly nine and seven years respectively, and both felt relatively comfortable taking on the captaincy in Blanch's absence (and the continued absence of Josh Schmiedel, who was named co-captain this year but has been sidelined through injury) as they try to lead through example on the field regardless.

"I was happy to be asked," Sheridan said.

"I feel like, being halfback, you've got to lead the team around [on-field] anyway. So it was just another day of responsibility, turning up and doing the job to lead from the front."

Although Boyce "[couldn't] fault anyone" with regards to the team's performance, there were a handful of players who came in for praise from the coach.

"I thought Jone Marau was outstanding, he had a really high work rate, and just got us out of trouble a lot," he said.

"I thought [Jake Vost] was quite good, and James Cooper was outstanding again."

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