By any measure, the inaugural Beach to Bush rugby sevens competition was a resounding triumph.

“The event was a tremendous success from the clubs perspective,” Burns said.

“We had 12 sides competing across the day, eight men’s and four women’s and that was a good fit to get the games completed in an orderly fashion.

“Running things for the first time was a bit daunting, but we learnt stuff that will make any future event better, we’ve recognised a few things we may change if we go again next year.”

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Burns is pretty bullish about the prospects of the tournament becoming a regular event on the Dubbo social and sporting calendar.

“The committee has to sit down and discuss it, but I am pretty confident we are going to do it again next year and we'll try and make it an annual event,” he said.

“We tweaked a couple of the standard beach rugby rules to allow more free-flowing games, rolling subs, ten-minute games, stuff like that we’ve heard the players loved. The guys who like to put a step on found that compared to grass the sand doesn't give much traction, it was hard on the legs, it was a great cardio work out.

“I was very surprised by the high quality of the rugby played on the day and from all reports the players would come back again, so I can’t see why we wouldn’t go again.”

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Burns said the event became bigger than the initial idea for the tournament.

“The original idea was to do something a little different in the off-season to keep the guys together and something that we could put on that was for the community as well as die-hard rugby people,” he said.

“By that metric, it was a 100 per cent success; it was exceptionally well run by our committee and volunteers.

“The five NSW rugby development people who helped us run the draw and referee the games were also great for us, as a result of their involvement and connections we were also able to get a couple of Wallaby players to attend the event.”

The Rhinos president was full of praise for the event sponsors and the organising committee.

“The biggest thing was the sand, getting it down and taking it away at the end of the event,” he said. “If it wasn’t for Dubbo Sands the tournament might not have happened.

“Also, the hours our committee and volunteers put in were extraordinary and the event would not have been as good as it was without them.”