Phononic crystals waveguides have often been presented as a promising path towards control of surface acoustic wave propagation. Yet, although their applicative potential is unquestionable, experimental demonstrations remain scarce. The development of phononic devices exhibiting Bragg band gap has been hindered by technological issues as it requires micro-machining of piezoelectric materials with high enough aspect ratios to ensure wave confinement at the  surface. Line-defect managed inside locally-resonant phononic crystals can be seen as a way to reduce the propagation loss as guided modes will appear at lower frequency, limiting phase-matching to bulk waves. Here we propose to take this approach a step further by using the intrinsic confinement induced by isolated and coupled resonators to trap the elastic energy at the substrate surface. The interplay between a pair of localised mechanical resonators and travelling surface acoustic waves (SAW), demonstrates the existence of a two-sided interaction. These different states allow the use of SAW to trigger and control the resonator oscillation, and to manipulate the elastic energy distribution on the substrate through resonator coupling. Observation of the vectorial structure of the resonator motion reveals the existence of two coupling regimes, a dipole-dipole-like interaction at small separation distance versus a surface-mediated mechanical coupling at larger separation. These results illustrate the potential of this platform for coherent control of mechanical vibration at a resonator level, and reciprocally for manipulating SAW propagation using sub-wavelength elements.