They're extremely valuable and that's what Charlie Steele-Park brings to the Orange Emus side as he put forward one of his best performances of the season with a double hat-trick in his team's 56-22 Blowes Clothing Cup win over Forbes Platypi.

"He's a good player and just naturally finds the try-line. Good footballers find the try-line," Emus coach Pete Bromley said.

After a slow start to the season, Emus win on Saturday at Endeavour Oval might prove to be its most vital yet with signs showing that combinations are starting to come together.

The men in green have been decimated by injuries in the first half of the season with Bromley having to name a different team every weekend.

After a close loss to Bathurst Bulldogs last weekend, the coach said the last two weeks have shown him that his side will be more than up for it come the business end of the season.

"We put together some good rugby, finally scored some points and improved from the previous few weeks," he said.

"It's been a steady improvement ... we played well against Bathurst but couldn't finish it off and then yesterday we got the rewards for sticking to what we've been working on and getting through the patterns of play we've been trying to execute and gained some good confidence."

While Bromley said this weekend's bye may have come at the 'wrong time', it'll provide his side the opportunity to get close to its full strength team after the 10 and 12 combination of Dan Jackson and Simon Uphill was trialled for the first time.

The club will also look to welcome back Angus Roberts in the coming weeks.

"It's been a steady improvement through the year, we've tried different combinations, different people at 10 and 12, and yesterday was a new combination again ... we'll look to build on that over the next few weeks," he said.

"We get Gus back from his hamstring injury in the next couple of weeks, we'll see what happens from there combination wise."

With Forbes beating first placed Cowra last week, and Cowra only just getting over Orange City on Saturday in a 16-8 win, the Blowes Clothing Cup 2022 season has started as one of the closest yet with no clear cut dominant team.

Bromley believes keeping your side fit will be the key for any team going forward.

"I think it's one of the most open competitions, first to fifth can beat anyone on their day," he explained.

"It's just a case of keeping bodies on the park and keep improving and I think we'll be around at the end of the competition."

While Saturday was undoubtedly a positive for Emus, conceding 22 points still provided an area for improvement.

Bromley agreed his side's defence will come down to games together.

"It's about trusting our defence and not giving people piggy backs into our 22, we're really guilty of scoring points and then allowing teams back into the game through a couple of penalties, then suddenly we're back in our line defending instead of being clinical getting back in our half and going again," he explained.

"That just comes from experience and combinations, they're a young group together and every week we're just getting better with combinations and going a week at a time. Hopefully next game we can pick an unchanged team for the first time this year.

"We haven't had the same 12 and 13 combination this year so hopefully Simon and Nigel (Staniforth) will be right for next match and can keep working together on their defensive patterns and structures in the centre of the field."

ORANGE EMUS 56 (Charlie Steele-Park 4, Simon Uphill, Harry Cummins, Nigel Staniforth, Simon Badgery tries; Nigel Staniforth 6, Jamil Khalfan 2 conversions) defeated FORBES PLATYPI 22

To read more stories, download the Central Western Daily news app in the Apple Store or Google Play.