Although he wasn't initially named Hewitt made his comeback from a knee injury at Wade Park on Sunday and slotted back into the Panthers' side seamlessly, directing traffic as his men in black - or white, in this instance, as per their away strip - rolled over the top of the injury-plagued hosts.

CYMS were missing more than half a dozen of their regular starting side and it showed as Panthers' middles controlled proceedings virtually from start to finish, with Loader in particular taking advantage, the crossed in the 38^th, 61^st and 80^th minutes.

Although aware of the hosts' injury woes and somewhat disappointed with a short lapse defensively in the second half, in which CYMS scored two tries in the space of five minutes, Hewitt said he was pleased with the win, which keeps his side unbeaten through four rounds.

"When you're up by quite a bit with not long left it happens, sometimes you take your foot off the gas. It does make you wonder a bit for the closer games, or the bigger games, but we did manage to get back into it and score a couple to finish it off," Hewitt said, confirming his knee "felt fine" throughout the clash.

"And you'll take any win you can get coming over here, especially a good one like that in terms of the margin, we saw last year any team in the top five could be the danger so every win's pretty important.

"It was pretty good really, we did what we've been working towards and training for which is pleasing. We knew they had a few boys out and you have to give credit to the effort of the guys who came in for CYMS too.

"The opening exchanges of that game were pretty physical and they toughed it out, it was a big effort."

CYMS player-coach Dom Maley, sporting a pretty nasty cut above his right eye, was pretty succinct after the game and while he refused to use his side's building casualty ward as an excuse he was forced to acknowledge the impact it had.

"We were missing a lot of our size through injury and Panthers just rolled through us in the middle, they're a really quality side and they were just too big and too strong for us really," Maley said, still finding positives in the defeat.

WATCH: The last pass just doesn't stick after a heads-up play from CYMS

"That did give a few guys the chance to step up into first grade and there was promising signs from that, Mitch Collins were instance was really impressive and we did some good things as a team too.

"We stuck with them for a big part of the first half and some of the second half too, but it was the first little part of the second half that killed us."

After leading 18-6 at half-time Panthers crossed twice in the opening 10 minutes of the second half through Jack Siejka and Blake Seager, it was the latter's second of the day.

WATCH: Panthers five-eighth Willie Wright forces a repeat set in the second half

Willie Wright nailed both kicks to push the scoreline to 30-6 and when Loader scored his second 19 out from full-time the result was assured, although CYMS did find another effort to answer back.

Ben McAlpine put Collins through a gaping hole for the youngster to score in his run-on debut, a deserved try in a Herculean, 80-minute performance in the back-row, before finishing a nifty little chip-and-chase from Luke Petrie himself.

McAlpine kicked the second to reduce the margin to 20 with 10 to go but Panthers were never really threatened, and they hammered a couple more nails into CYMS' coffin when Wright scored and then Loader completed his hat-trick on the stroke of full-time.

Unfortunately for CYMS, who were already missing Jarryd Tyack, Steve Morris, Chris Grevsmuhl and Joseph Ualesi among others, the clash with Panthers' massive pack took its toll as well.

There was plenty of concern surrounding stalwart lock Tim Mortimer, who copped another head knock in the defeat just weeks after suffering a severe concussion in the pre-season, coming from the field in the 37^th minute and not returning.

The win keeps Panthers in a share for the competition lead with Mudgee, who defeated Orange Hawks on Sunday, while CYMS drop to fifth.