It was scrappy, and it was far from perfect, but the Bulldogs, thanks to a strong defensive effort, were able to walk away with a 7-0 win.

Tyson Smith’s converted try, which came several phases after the half-time siren, proved the difference.

The back half of the match belonged to the Eagles, who found plenty of opportunities to get back into the game.

However, they weren’t able to capitalise on any of them, and were left to rue a string of errors within the final 10 minutes.

The result is another strong showcase for the Bulldogs defence. For the second time this season, they have managed to keep the Eagles scoreless (following the 29-0 result at Cowra earlier in the season).

Bathurst co-coach Shane Cantrill felt hard done by in the penalty stakes, but was thrilled with how his side were once again able to keep the Eagles off the scoresheet.

“That was a solid effort from both sides. It was pretty windy here today and you couldn’t shift the ball around easily,” he said.

“Our defence in that first half was outstanding.”

The Bulldogs started the match with the wind advantage and wasted no time keeping Cowra pinned inside their own half.

Both teams were happy in the testing conditions to just run through their phases through the middle of the park, with most attempts at spreading the ball leading to errors on both ends.

One of the better chances for the home side in the opening 15 minutes came when Justin Mobbs almost got on the end of a grubber kick down the right wing, but he wasn’t quite able to regather the ball after his first touch.

The Eagles looked to hit back straight away off their own line as John Clark made a break down the right wing, before the chance ended just moments later with an error inside the Bathurst half.

Scott Johnston was stopped just metres shy of the Eagles tryline as the Eagles defence were keen to show they’d learnt their lesson from the opening round.

It looked like both sides were destined to go to the sheds scoreless, but as the siren sounded, Smith had other ideas.

A quick, short ball out to his left wing created an overlap and he was able to run towards the posts to give his captain Steve Locke an easy conversion attempt.

The next half belonged to the new team with the wind at their backs: Cowra.

Penalties came thick and fast for the visitors and they were able to set up camp inside the Bathurst 22 metres for the run home.

Errors crippled the Eagles’ hopes of pinching a draw, however, with three dropped balls inside the final five minutes ending their chances at finding their first points against the Bulldogs this year.

The full-time whistle brought an end to a very rare Central West Rugby half of football – a scoreless one.

“We dropped a lot of ball, though conditions were bad. We had easy balls hitting the turf. We didn’t use the ball in the second half and we didn’t use the wind. We didn’t kick enough and ended up with a lot of pressure on our line,” Cowra’s Jeremy Montgomery said.

“When we played them at home it was rubbish on our part. We didn’t play terrible today, but we didn’t play as well as we could have.”

BATHURST BULLDOGS 7 (Tyson Smith try; Steve Locke conversion) defeated COWRA EAGLES 0