Game called off, melee ensues in dramatic schoolboy footy carnival

The Hardy Shield winners had the best record of the four teams in the opens after receiving a forfeit from Murrumbidgee Regional High School - Griffith in the last of their three games on Thursday.

The Griffith school elected not to take to the field after having three of their players stood down following the dramatic conclusion to their clash with Young's Hennessy Catholic College.

With tempers rising the game was called off early however it sparked more drama with both teams clashing once more.

NRL Regional Game Development Manager James Smart stepped in looking to control the situation.

"From reports there was a little bit of niggle, some sledging from both teams and the situation seemed it was only going to continue to escalate so the ground manager advised the referee to call the game off," Smart said.

"There was about four minutes to go at the time.

"With it being school rugby league that's the opposite of what we are there for in the first place - to give the kids an opportunity to play and have a good experience - so I felt we did the right thing there.

"Then there was a melee after full-time involving both teams and out of that there were three players from Hennessy and three players from Murrumbidgee Griffith that were stood down from the rest of the day."

Pushing and shoving was the extent of the physicality between the two teams.

However Smart wanted to make sure it is known that this type of behaviour isn't tolerated.

Hennessy also forfeited their last game to Leeton's St Francis de Sales Regional College.

After having a 12-all draw with Hennessy, Kildare took an 18-0 win over St Francis to secure their progression.

A slow start saw them concede the first two tries of the day but coach Matt Ward was pleased with how Kildare responded.

"We played Hennessy in the first game and actually started off really poorly, it was 12-0 at half-time to them but it ended up a 12-all and went through winning 18-0 against St Francis to see us through," Ward said.

Kildare progressed in the under 15s after a 18-8 win over Hennessy before a 28-8 victory against Yanco Agricultural High School.

Coach Geoff McNamara was pleased with how the side performed.

"They were really impressive and we put a bit of structure in at training and they put it together," McNamara said.

"It's pretty hard to get them to training sometimes and a couple of weeks ago in the Wagga comp they were very disjointed whereas today worked really smoothly and they got the results."

Yanco Ag did progress in the under 13s after a 14-10 win over Temora High School and a 46-4 thrashing of Wagga High School.

Wagga High also suffered a 22-0 loss to Temora High.

The Southern NSW finals will be held at Parramore Park on August 1.