The men in green overcame an extremely competitive Orange City outfit at Pride Park on Saturday afternoon and notched up their 7th win of the season to the tune of 31-17.

It was one of the more competitive local derbies in recent memory as the home side were up to their necks in the competition until Joe Lasagavibau was shown a yellow card for a ruck infringement when the sides were deadlocked at 17-all.

From then on, Pete Bromley's boys showed their championship pedigree, scoring back-to-back tries in the final 15 minutes to seal the result.

It's been a quiet season on the media front for Emus' five-eighth Carter Hirini but the Kiwi addressed the side's ongoing improvement after the game.

"We got around the structures and plans we've put in place," Hirini said.

"The whole season we've been working on them week in, week out and we believed in ourselves and our coaches today.

"We backed ourselves, put our heads down and did our jobs."

The structures Hirini's referring to are simply a number of game-planning adjustments head coach Pete Bromley's been making throughout the season as the 2018 premiers look to find the perfect balance ahead of their finals run.

And while Hirini knows his troops are off to the best possible start, he conceded that there's still plenty of work to do.

"Oh, for sure... there's still a lot more to do," he said.

"We've been consistent over the last three-four-five years and we're trying to break some of these moulds now. We're still working them out.

"For us it just comes down to confidence, really. Some of these guys are running moves they haven't run before but as the confidence builds it's going to become easier."

Hirini had nothing but good things to say about the side's evolving combinations after the game, praising the likes of Jamil Khalfan and Sam Green for their ongoing impact throughout the victory.

City coach Viv Paasi wasn't overly impressed with his side's efforts in the wake of the season's first derby loss to Emus but was considerably happier on Saturday as his side went shot-for-shot with the clear-cut competition favourites until the dying stages.

"I'm really really impressed with how far we've come from the last time we played them until now," he said.

"We stood up defensively for most of the game and it was just a couple of cheap errors that costed up points wise."

The aforementioned yellow card was a game-changing occurrence for the Lions but Paasi can't hold it against Lasagavibau and knows the infringement was just a reflection of enthusiasm.

"The guys were just so keen to get up in defence and Joey was just trying to turn the ball over and make something happen... it just wasn't the right moment," he said.

Although the loss isn't ideal, Paasi's pleased at how the side's tracking and commented on the doubters that were floating around in the lead up to the abbreviated competition.

"We're on track to play finals football and a lot of people didn't think we could," he said.

"And that's probably fair... we didn't win a game last year but this year we've been able to pull it together with a lot of new additions - both from league and all over the place.

"We want to put Orange City back into a competitive mindframe and try to build the club so these young guys that are coming through can take after the older guys.

"There's a lot of good juniors who want to play first grade and those young guys have something to aspire to right now."

Orange City will look to make it two-from-two against Forbes next week while Emus will travel to play Dubbo.