The greens held a 17-9 lead at the break before Dubbo halfback Pat Berryman gave his side a sniff with a converted try just one minute into the new half, but after that it was one-way traffic as Emus crossed the stripe another four times to pick up their eighth win of the season.

Emus skipper Nigel Staniforth, who scored a double, lauded his side’s defensive effort, saying the greens were able to take the momentum they gained from continually turning Roos away and turn that into points at the other end.

“That’s probably the most pleasing thing for me, the defensive effort. Roos did score 16 points, but nine of them came from penalty goals and then they scored a pretty opportunistic try, which happens,” Staniforth said.

“Dubbo controlled the ball well and held onto it for substantial periods at times, but we kept them out and almost every time afterward we marched up and added points, we scored virtually every time we got into their red zone.

“It was definitely one of our better performances, we’ve been working on making sure we build some forward momentum and retain the ball better, and we did that well [on Saturday].”

While pleased with his side’s application, Roos skipper Shaun McHugh said Emus were simply “too good”, but admitted the visitors’ defensive effort left plenty to be desired, particularly under pressure inside their own half.

“Effort was a thing we are pleased with, the effort was there, but we’re certainly not pleased with the result, not after we started so well,” McHugh said, his side was the better in the opening exchanges.

“We were really good in the first 10 or 15, which I think Emus would attest to, but after that we just let in soft tries, too many soft tries. We did the same thing against (Bathurst) Bulldogs. Emus walked through us three or four times in that second half, every time they got in our 22 they scored.

“We worked hard all week on that all week and spoke about our attitude in defence during the week, so it’s disappointing that we then don’t put it on the field. I don’t really know what the answer is there, you know, we’ve got good players and we’re a good side, we just can’t seem to put it together often enough.”

Berryman – who actually scored all 16 of his side’s points in a superb performance – knocked over a penalty goal early to give Roos a 3-0 lead, and the visitors looked likely to extend that with a couple of promising raids.

Emus turned them away though, before halfback TJ Cunynghame turned Tom Goolagong under and into a gaping hole one-off the ruck, the greens’ hooker waltzing through to score.

Roos answered back with another Berryman penalty goal, before Staniforth scored the first of his two tries and Scott McLean pushed his way over as well to give the greens a 17-6 lead.

Berryman slotted another penalty before the break to cut the gap to eight, before catching Emus napping in the first minute of the second half. He took a quick tap from a penalty and darted through the greens’ offside defenders before diving over to score, and converting.

That slashed the gap to just one and gave Roos a massive sniff, but Emus prop Matt Findlay burrowed his way over from close range two minutes later and from there the greens were never troubled, with Jayden Norris and Kyran Bubb both scoring while Staniforth grabbed his second as well.

Bubb was Emus’ best at five-eighth while Cunynghame was excellent as well, as was the entire Emus forward pack, which included a number of new faces thanks to injury and unavailability.

“It’s a confidence boost to be able to win against a good side with half your starting forward pack missing, but the guys who came in are really quality players though so we knew they’d slot in without any issues, and I don’t think we’ve been hit anywhere near as hard as Dubbo have,” Staniforth said.

Berryman was the visitors’ best, while McHugh was his usual monumental self and Hamish Gordon had an excellent game as well. Ben Knaggs was also strong, backing up from Friday night’s colts game to make his top grade debut.