Closer to home, with the Blowes Clothing Cup proudly on display at Cale Oval the Narromine Gorillas were preparing for another season as Central West Rugby Union's top dogs after reaching the region's zenith in 2009.

The Gorillas went on the play in the 2010 and 2011 grand finals before, sadly, experiencing the inevitable, steady, cyclical decline every club in the bush tends to go through following any dominant period.

Narromine finished fourth the year after and missed the finals for four consecutive seasons before dropping down to the then-GrainCorp Cup's Northern Division, the second tier, with a lack of player numbers reflective in their results.

They've built steadily since then. While they won that 2017 premiership undefeated and did the same in last year's inaugural New Holland Agriculture Cup, more importantly their junior base was being reinvigorated, to the point they've been able to field a colts side this year.

That colts side is chugging along well and the Gorillas' two senior sides are both on track for premiership glory again, which begs the obvious question - will Narromine return to the top tier?

"I think we can (make the step up)," Luke Brown, who captain-coached the 2009 premiership side, said.

"We've gone down lower and dropped to the [GrainCorp Cup] a few years ago but that was because we couldn't field the numbers and weren't getting the results.

"I think now you can see the success of that, people are coming back to the club and there's a new age of players.

"Our numbers are building we just couldn't do it before with colts backing up and playing a whole game of second grade ... there's no future in that. Now we've got some numbers, a good core and the older guys can step aside and let the younger guys come through now.

'We're starting to build back up, we won't be pushing for Blowes (Clothing) Cup glory any time soon but we're definitely heading that way.

"It goes in cycles, we've been at the bottom and now hopefully we're heading in the right direction."

The Gorillas' first and second grade sides sit on top of their respective New Holland Agriculture Cup tables, and host Blayney this weekend.