Riverside and Launceston secured points on first innings over South Launceston and Mowbray respectively but both victors were in play for an outright until both away sides proved stubborn in defiance.

At Riverside No.1, it was Tom Garwood who stole the show as he wreaked havoc through the Knights' batting order in a magnificent display of bowling.

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After the Knights' opening pair Jeremy Jackson and Doug Ryan were back in the sheds, South Launceston seemed relatively comfortable at 2-103 with captain Sean Harris well set on 51.

After young all-rounder Aidan O'Connor knocked over the Knights' first-drop, the floodgates started to open for the Blues as they rattled through the middle-order.

Garwood (7-23) trapped a sweeping Angus Foster in front before the Blues' leader set-up a hat-trick ball when Riley Donlon's stumps were rattled.

Knights' debutant Oliver Knowles negated the hat-trick but fell the next ball as Garwood snuck one through his forward defence to leave South Launceston at 6-114, needing rain or a meteor strike to avoid a first innings loss.

Graham Donaldson's walk to the wicket provided a quick return trip as he was adjudged adjacent to give Garwood a second chance at a hat-trick.

With a packed field including four men in close around the bat, James Leake decided to hit out on the sweep only to be struck on the pad and give Garwood his sixth wicket.

When Alex Licht trudged off after being condemned to a similar fate, Riverside knew to press their advantage after securing the first-innings points with the Knights all out for 119 as Garwood finished with seven wickets.

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The Blues captain heaped praise on his bowling unit in light of taking his best-ever bowling figures.

"It's always good when a plan comes off, I had back-up from all the other bowlers though, I was the lucky one today who took the majority of the wickets but it was a good team effort," he said.

"To be able to do that after lunch, which was our plan to really go hard after lunch and put the pressure back on them at the stumps, we wanted to hit the top of off and attack them and I was lucky enough to grab a few wickets.

"We just attacked the stumps and the plan that we had in place today came off which was nice."

The thoughts that must have been going through the South Launceston dressing room one could only imagine as O'Connor seared one past Jackson and condemned Arnott to a first-ball duck to set-up the third hat-trick opportunity of the day.

It did not eventuate but the Blues, sensing the possibility of maximum points, refused to relent as they affected a run-out, Garwood claimed his eighth of the match, Harris departed and Donlon was bowled.

The only blot was when Cooper Anthes was felled by a powerful Foster pull-shot which left Anthes needing time off the ground and Foster visibly distressed as the game stopped.

The game scenario left Leake (9 off 72) and Donaldson (8 off 59) needing to entrench themselves at the wicket to avoid an outright loss with Riverside looking odds on to press home the advantage.

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For the best part of 20 overs, the pair parried, blocked and bunted the Blues away while the trifecta of Garwood, O'Connor and Ramesh Sundra toiled away to no avail as Leake and Donaldson carried the Knights to the end.

Despite missing the outright, Garwood was happy to bank Riverside's first win of 2022.

"To get off the mark especially in two-day stuff is really important, we'll take a lot of momentum out that especially with going into a bit of a break next week with the Test," he said.

"It was a really good two days of cricket, we did it with bat and ball, now we can improve and learn on what we did and what went well and build on that going forward."

Across town, another opener, in the form of Cameron Lynch, who starred with the ball to claim seven wickets for the day across two innings.

Mowbray resumed at no loss on Sunday but that evaporated when Jason Snare was knocked over by Daniel Smith.

When spinner Will Bennett claimed John Hayes, the wickets came with regularity as the Lions worked in unison as a bowling attack to extract one Eagle after another on a difficult wicket.

Lynch (4-17) mopped up the lower-order as his spin confounded Jono Jones, James Storay and Samuel Artis who all had their stumps disturbed as the Lions' star man claimed four of the last five wickets.

It was enough to see the Eagles all out at 134, a total achieved largely in part to Ishang Shah's resistance (47 off 101), but with time left in the day and a low-and-slow pitch on offer Launceston pushed for an outright.

The Lions' brains trust had twigged to Lynch's suitability to the conditions as the spinner took the new ball as opposed to coming on at sixth change like in the first innings.

Snare was sent packing early as the opener searched for a risky third run in a densely-packed field only to be run-out by James Lee and Lynch.

Lynch's flight and placement lured Hayes into a false shot and was sharply stumped by Charlie Eastoe before William Dakin holed out in the deep shortly afterwards.

When Lynch (3-29) claimed the wicket of Thomas Dwyer, Launceston's chances of securing an outright win seemed to increase by the over.

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Shah (52 off 105), who had played a lone hand in the first innings, was once again left to stand up for the Eagles alongside middle-order batter Lachlan Dakin (27 off 94).

For the best part of 30 overs, on a wicket which had bamboozled almost every batter to step foot on it, the Eagles' duo resisted the Lions bowling attack.

The Lions dug deep into the repertoire as they used eight bowlers in search of the elusive partnership breaker as Shah and Dakin defended until the close of play at 4-95 to prevent the outright win.

Cricket North will take a break as the Ashes come to Tasmania for the historic first-ever Ashes Test to conclude the summer.

The competition will resume on January 22 for another set of two-day fixtures as Mowbray welcome Riverside and Westbury host South Launceston with Launceston set for an extended stint on the sidelines with the round 13 bye.

That weekend will also feature Greater Northern Cup semi-final action on the Sunday in a jam-packed weekend.

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