Wellington's Kennard Park was the meeting place for arguably the two heavyweight sides in the competition and it was the home side who opened the scoring with captain-coach Justin Toomey-White putting Corey Cox over in the corner with Nathan Williams added the extra two.

Both sides looked to out bash each other before Jyie Chapman stepped inside three Wellington defenders to score the first for the visitors and Bradley Pickering promptly converted equaling the scores at 6-a-piece.

Veteran Cowboys hooker Dennis Moran caught the CYMS defence lazily shooting off their line as he darted towards the line to give the home crowd something to cheer about with the score 12-6 going into half-time.

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Early in the second half, Chapman made a break down the right edge and found Thurston make inside as he raced away for his first try of the day before Corey Drew scored shortly after to give CYMS an 18-12 lead.

The floodgates seemingly opened as Thurston scored his second of the day followed by Billy Sing scoring a 50 metre try of his own just a minute later but Wellington hit back through Colt Ure.

With just a minute remaining Thurston rebounded a kick off his leg and ran the length of the field to score in front of the visitors fans to finish the match 42-16.

CYMS coach Shawn Townsend was pleased with his sides performance in what was a physical clash.

"Relieved to get two points after coming over here, we as a club think they are the benchmark of the comp, it was good to come away with two points." he said.

"Second half we played like we wanted to play, we completed a few sets a bit better."

Townsend also was full of praise for hat-trick hero Thurston following the win.

"He's big, strong, powerful, fast and skillful, they don't grow on trees those ones so if you out him in the other side they probably win." he said.

"He scored a couple and set a few up, he's a good footballer and he deserves everything he gets he is as fit as and in the training sessions he leads so he deserves it."

After leading from the front Toomey-White said he expected nothing less than a tough match from CYMS.

"It was tough one today, we knew it was going to be a tough one because CYMS are an awesome side and an awesome club," he said.

"We knew the intensity was going to be high but it's a tough loss."

Toomey-White admitted that the game felt more like a final then a round two clash.

"That's semi-final intensity there and it's round two so we know what the comp has got in store for us this year so it's a tough loss but we will work this week to get ourselves sorted for Narromine." he said.

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