The Bears posted three tries in the opening ten minutes of the Presidents Cup clash at North Sydney Oval. The Butchers hit back through Jack Payne in the 17^th minute but found themselves down 24-4 at halftime.

They rallied in the third term, bringing things back to 24-16 before the Bears managed two tries in the final seven minutes. Costello wasn't too displeased given a disrupted preparation coming off a bye.

"Our preparation wasn't great, we had a bye and the grounds were closed so we couldn't train at all, we trained for 30 minutes on a tennis court on Thursday," Costello said.

"They started really fast in the first 10 minutes and we didn't match them there. We had to do a lot of defending in that first 15 minutes and didn't have much of the ball.

"We showed really good character there to claw our way back to 24-16 and get back into the game with 20 to go before it got away from us in the last 10 minutes when they scored a couple of tries to blow the score out.

"I was really proud of how we worked our way back into the game after a slow start and there's a lot of lessons we can take from it."

The Butchers will look to stay in touch with the top four when they travel to Orange to take on Western Rams this weekend.

Wests will also be back in action following their round two bye, hosting Dubbo Cyms at Parrish Park at midday on Sunday.