The Blues top-order collapsed to 5-50 early on, but managed to churn out 129 in the season return of Cricket North’s two-day campaign.

But Lions captain-coach Alistair Taylor said the scorecard perhaps did not reflect the nature of the clash.

“I think we started off a little bit slow,” he said.

“The ball was swinging around a bit. We just couldn’t get it in the right areas.

“It took the opening bowlers a little bit of it to get into it and then once it clicked, it just kind of clicked.

“We had some really good plans and some different stuff going on, but everything we decide to do seemed to work in the end.”

Tom Gray demonstrated his lessons from a number of appearances this summer for Greater Northern Raiders in a tough Cricket Tasmania Premier League initiation.

The opening paceman finished with 6-40 off 15.5 overs.

Taylor had a golden day behind the stumps, taking six caught behinds while the bowlers picked up a further three leg before wickets.

“It tells me that the boys bowled in some good areas,” Taylor said.

But tailender Tom Lewis (25) joined coach Lyndon Stubbs (16 not out) in a ninth-wicket, 50-run partnership that gave Riverside something to defend.

The visitors got away again at the start of another innings after Lachie Newland showcased his undoubted potential with 50 as a part of an opening stand of 46 with partner Cameron Lynch.

But Riverside tipped the balance back with a series of late wickets to have Launceston at a precarious 4-84.

Riverside captain Tom Garwood believed his side walked off the ground feeling it had a sniff to take first-innings points next week.

“They’re probably ahead in the game, but if we can take a couple of wickets next week it’s game on,” he said.

“We dug in pretty deep in that last hour and a half to take four wickets, which is really good to see.”

MOWBRAY and SOUTH LAUNCESTON were evenly poised at stumps.

In an encounter of swinging fortunes at Invermay Park, the Eagles’ good start were snuffed out when the dismissal of Jarrod Freeman catapulted a loss of 6-32.

The hosts were bowled out for 188 after Freeman made 57 and Luke Scott added 42.

“We were a little bit disappointed with the way our innings finished,” Mowbray captain John Le Fevre said.

“We thought we did a bit of hard work early and set ourselves well, but didn’t capitalised late.”

South Launceston leggie Jeremy Jackson finished with 4-48. But the Knights acting captain had top allies with Jackson Young claiming 3-41 and Josh Freestone 3-54.

“All our bowlers actually bowled really well today,” he said. “But I think Jackson Young was actually the pick of our bowlers, but I chipped in with some lucky ones.”

South pushed well to 1-61, but lost two late wickets to be 3-78 to upset the days’ work.

Opener Sean Harris looked in brilliant form, reaching 55 off 89 balls that included 10 boundaries.