The under 16s outfit led Western 12-10 at the break at Leeton No.1 Oval on Sunday, but errors proved costly in the end.

Coach Ben Mott thought the 20-16 loss was one that got away.

"There was some really soft attempts in defence and we didn't aim up after a mistake," Mott said.

"We just dropped our heads.

'"Three of their tries were pretty soft if you look back at them and one was from a lucky bounce over the fullback's head.

"We had more than enough chances and if we were a bit better in defence we would have won that."

Western opened the scoring after nine minutes before Noah Killeen scored to put the Bulls back in front.

The Rams responded before Isaac Hardman crossed just before half-time.

Seven minutes after the break Western went back in front and then pushed their lead to 20-10 before Jared Mckinnon crossed with seven to play.

However Riverina couldn't continue their fightback to fall to successive losses to start their campaign.

Despite falling short McKinnon impressed at fullback as did Riley Powderly while Elvis Nauer-Wood put in another good performance.

Meanwhile Riverina were thrashed by Western in the Laurie Daley Cup.

The Rams proved far too good, taking a 54-6 victory.

Western led 20-6 at half-time and only went further in front after the interval.

Zain Mitchell-Dowding scored Riverina's lone try while Samuel Lane, David West and Zac Williams all crossed for doubles for Western.

Both Riverina sides will face another tough challenge as they look to respond to two losses to start their respective campaigns when they host Central Coast at McLean Oval in Harden on Saturday in their last home game of the season.

The Roosters are yet to taste defeat in either competition so far and Mott is expecting another tough clash up against a big side.

However their hopes will be buoyed by the return of centres Max Harland (suspension) and Jacob Iosefa (injury) this week.

"Central Coast will be very big but we will have a training run together as a team on Wednesday to sort a few things out but we should have a few coming back," he said.

"It will be a chance to shake up the squad a little bit and get it back."

Jed Reardon is also expected to play his first game of the season after a water skiing injury.

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