The Magpies staged a ‘Fly for Jye’ fundraising day for popular clubman Jye Bull, who has cancer, on Saturday at the Berry Showground.

The Knights won the match 42-18 but the day was much more than your normal Group Seven Rugby League contest.

It was a day for the rugby league community to stand together and say to one of their own - ‘mate are thinking of you and we are here for you’.

For champion Berry hooker Blake Dryden his close friend’s inspirational battle with cancer put things into perspective.

“Yeah it was a massive massive game for me,” he said.

“Pretty disappointed not to get the result for Jye but that is footy I guess.

“Jye is here at the ground and it’s a pretty special day for the club.”

You could tell how important the match was to him from the emotion in his voice.

“Everyone says footy is a battle but it’s nothing compared to what Jye is going through,” he said.

“Jye is a pretty special guy.”

The conditions were slippery and both teams made many mistakes in the first half.

Berry got off to a near perfect start when hard-working back rower Bryce Rutherford scored the first try of the match.

A boilover looked possible when the home side held a 14-12 lead at halftime.

Dryden said Kiama adapted to the slippery conditions better in the second half.

“We went alright but just did not complete our sets in the conditions and it was pretty slippery out there,” he said.

“Kiama completed a bit better and fought a bit harder.”

He found making his traditional dummy half charges hard because of the slippery conditions and good Kiama defence in the middle.

Kiama captain and co-coach Luke Muttdon had a smile of relief on his face when the game was drawing to a close but he was far from happy with his team’s first half effort.

“No definitely no smiles at halftime and I think it all comes down to completions,’ he said

“We came out in the second half and completed 12 of our first 13 sets in the second half and this was reflected on the scoreboard.”

He and others at the match gave Dylan Morris a big wrap

“Every now and then Dylan comes up with something freakish but he still has got a bit of developing to do and different aspects of the game to learn,” he said.

“Yeah he has got that spark and comes up with the miracle play when we need it.”

Take Morris out of the game, with his two tries, numerous try assists and goal-kicking, and things could have been different.

Morris, who defended on the wing but played fullback in attack, was one of his team’s best players as was centre Aaron Ditton, prop Luke Sutton and Muttdon led by example.

Muttdon said his team must starting stringing 80 minute efforts together and then they would be a tough prospect for any team in the competition.

“Effort and attitude is definitely there in the team,” he said.

Muttdon said Berry produced a good effort.

“We knew what we were going to get from Berry when we got here and Berry goes for the full 80 minutes, are tough and they get into the arm-wrestle and slug it out,” he said.

It was hard to find a bad player for Berry as they all played strongly and given a bit of luck things could have been different.

The Berry selectors will be keeping an eye on key forwards Joe O’Brien and Trent Burns who both left the field with injuries.