After three losses to start the season, the Saints got on the board with a four-point win over East Wagga-Kooringal heading into the bye.

You could argue the week off couldn't have come at a worst time, but assistant coach Ben Alexander believes it works in the side's favour.

Especially after giving defender Lachie Johnson an extra week to return to fitness.

"There were a few blokes with a few little niggles we needed to get on top of," Alexander said.

"We've got Johnno coming back this week as well as it put another week on his recovery.

"He's ready to go this week so it's probably helped us more than anything."

However it isn't all good news for North Wagga with Ben Keith to miss the clash with The Rock-Yerong Creek due to a foot complaint he picked up early in their lone win to date.

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North Wagga lost to Northern Jets, Marrar and Temora, who all sit in the top five, in the opening three rounds in a tight start to the Farrer League season.

Alexander isn't too worried about their position ahead of their clash with the Magpies at Victoria Park on Saturday.

"It was a bit of a slow start but there's a lot of key areas that we look at throughout the day and we were ticking off a lot of those areas," he said. "It was just a few things going forward that hurt us a little bit and while we weren't playing too bad of football it was very relieving to get that first win.

"We've set the first block down and will now try to get over The Rock on the weekend and they're in the same position as us.

"They've probably not got as many wins under their belt as they would have liked at this point of the season so for both sides it is going to be a good game."

The Rock-Yerong Creek are looking to end a two-game losing run after just going down late to East Wagga-Kooringal last week.

Alexander believes managing their tall options will be one of the keys.

"We're just going to go out there to get the game on our terms and play our way," he said.

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