CSU suffers it first loss to Dubbo Rhinos since April 2018

And a bitter taste it was as the Rhinos opened the New Holland Cup season with a 40-0 win at Apex Oval.

The last time that CSU had lost to the Rhinos was when going down 12-9 in April 2018. Since then the students had beaten the Dubbo side nine times and racked up 331 points against them.

But on Saturday it was the Rhinos who dominated.

"They've got a whole new team, they were super powerful, we were really babies against men," Conyers conceded.

"It was just one of those days where nothing went right, the opposition got their tails up and their power and their experience just destroyed us really.

"Around the paddock we just didn't protect the ball, we lacked cohesion and continuity and there was 30-something penalties in the game so there was no flow at all, it was totally disrupted by penalties."

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While Rhinos were dealt an early blow when halfback Kaiden Hill was yellow carded in the eighth minute after tackling a player in the air, the hosts regrouped.

By half-time they led 12-0 and after the break they ran riot against CSU.

"The first half wasn't too bad, we let in a couple of tries early and we missed a couple of shots at goal, but we just didn't connect at all across the paddock anywhere," Conyers said.

"When you look at our limited training, it was the first time we had our run-on side together and we were very under prepared as I predicted.

"Everybody was really disappointed in the performance, there was a lot of effort lacking off the ball."

Conyers said the one positive was how CSU held up in the set pieces, their outsized scrum competed well and they lost just one line-out.

Captain Lachie Melville and flanker Adam Conroy toiled for CSU on a day the students had few highlights.

"Our scrum and our line-out were really good, it's a really big credit to the young fellas, some of them were playing their first game in first grade, they really stuck up in the scrums and line-outs," Conyers said.

"But around the rest of the field they just destroyed us, their fullback scored three or four tries himself.

"Sometimes you have days like that and 40-0 down is a good motivator to get better isn't it?"

CSU have the bye in round two.

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