SOUTHCITY has broken its Group Nine duck in a big way by thumping a struggling Tumut outfit 96-12 at the weekend.

The Bulls had battled through the opening three rounds of the season without a win but finally tossed the monkey off their back at Harris Park on Sunday.

It took three minutes for hooker Pani Manawatu to open the scoring, but the Blues made things interesting when they crossed through Thomas Breheny just a couple of minutes later to level the scoreboard.

From there it was almost a non-contest, as Southcity ran in another eight tries before half time.

It was exciting Bulls centre Peter Little who was the star of the show, crossing five times before the break and finishing with six for the game.

He was gifted his fourth try when coach Daniel Fitzhenry ran through a gap and over the line only to offload the ball to his teammate, but the other five were all brilliant from Little.

His tally made it nine tries for the weekend following his three while representing Group Nine on Saturday night.

Apart from the centre, Fitzhenry was the architect at halfback and his halves partner Nathan Rose scored three tries himself, one of which was a 90m sprint and another a classy solo effort to beat four Tumut defenders.

Big Tumut prop Joe Ioane-Totu broke through the line and scored a consolation try in the second half but the Blues showed no signs of tossing their poor early-season form.

Fitzhenry was relieved to get a win on the board.

"We had a very disappointing couple of rounds so it was nice to get the win today," he said.

"But I don't think you can take too much out of it.

"We've got Gundagai and Albury over the next couple of weeks so we know we're going to have to be a lot better than we were, even today, just to be competitive with those two sides.

"I guess it's nice to get a bit of a winning feeling in the sheds."

Damaging Southcity forward Nick Skinner left the ground five minutes into the game and didn't return.

He reportedly pulled up sore from Saturday's representative game, but rumours suggested he had inflamed a neck injury.

Fitzhenry and Manawatu also played limited game time in the second half.

"I was quite happy to sit down for a little while," Fitzhenry laughed.

"We had young Troy Barby on the bench and he usually swaps with Pani, but Pani wanted to have a bit more game time which was fair enough, so they pushed us old blokes off."

Little was benched during the second half but was quick to call young winger Jack Lyons off the ground and replace him when Lyons scored his fifth try and looked in danger of catching the experienced centre.