The speedy striker was on and off throughout the 70 minutes, nursing a left quad injury, but her sporadic injection back into the Dubbo attacking third proved undeniable as Waters scored goals in the 21st, 22nd, 55th and 63rd minutes to secure the visitors a crucial away women’s Premier League Hockey win.

“They virtually had me cherry picking up top,” Waters said after the win.

“They told me to float around and the girls were just putting beautiful balls straight through ...lucky me, I was just there at the right time I suppose.”

An evenly matched game for the most part, when Waters was on so too was Dubbo, and there was nothing Feds coach Mark Pengilly could do to stop her.

“She carved us to bits,” Pengilly said,

“We knew she was going to attack pretty strongly, we just didn’t shut her down.”

Initially Feds did shut Waters down, though, as the red and blues defended stoically throughout the first 20 minutes of the match, keeper Steph Hinds particularly impressive between the sticks as Feds fended off three Blue Jays short corners in that time.

But, as has been the case all season for Feds, that good period of play was followed up by mayhem.

After a sublime pass from Emma Cocoran, Waters hammered home her first and then 60 seconds later had a second to gift Dubbo a 2-0 lead after 22 minutes.

Mayhem turned to disaster four minutes later when Courtney Hogan sent a laser-like cross into the circle for Alisa Shaw to find the final touch and the back of the goal to shoot the visitors out to a 3-0 lead.

It was a five-minute period Feds would never recover from.

Defiantly, the hosts hit back six minutes from the break when Dubbo keeper Michelle Courtney was pinged for laying on the ball, Feds defender Rach Pengilly good enough to convert the penalty stroke in front of goal to peg the margin back to two.

Both teams wrestled for the ascendency in the opening 15 minutes of the second stanza, and when Anna Evans cleaned up a short corner scramble to scoop one over Courtney in goals, Feds were all of a sudden back in the contest at 3-2 down.

But another Feds lapse arrived.

And as she was in the first half, Waters was good enough to pounce again in the second, scoring the game’s final two winners just eight minutes apart to seal victory and a top five spot headed into next weekend’s general bye.

“This is fantastic. We needed this win to stay up in top five,” she said.

“The girls knew we had to lift and we had to play really, really strongly.”

Waters was the obvious stand-out for Dubbo, but Feds were best served by young-gun Eva Reith-Snare who never once looked out of place despite some opposition players boasting twice the experience.

“We played well in patches,” Pengilly said.

“And once we linked well we can match it with good sides like Dubbo. It’s just about maintaining intensity instead of having those five minute lapses.”

DUBBO BLUE JAYS 5 (Alex Waters 4, Alisa Shaw) def CONFEDERATES 2 (Rach Pengilly, Anna Evans