In the first half Adam Lowe was applauded as he left the field with a broken arm, but that was nothing compared to the second half.

"In the second half it really got to us," Pettit said. "We lost a few players to some bad injuries."

"Adam is looking at surgery so will be out for a fair while, Joey Hobby dislocated his shoulder, Lewis Bird got a bad knockout and there were a few niggly ones that should sort themselves out."

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The Bear's next match has been rescheduled until later in the season and they will have this week to recover and regroup after their 28-18 loss against a tough Mudgee Dragons side.

"Mudgee is always a strong side, so I was expecting that, a few other blokes may not have been expecting it, but I knew it was coming," Pettit said.

Mudgee won't be the only tough side that the Bears will come up against this year, and Pettit acknowledges that the side's fitness needs to improve before they can show some true improvement.

Even during the first half the Bear's were showing fatigue early on, and the errors sprung from that.

"Fitness is still lacking a bit, which is usual this early in the season, getting our match fitness up is the goal now, but once that's sorted we should be right."