The game was closely fought for the first half, with Dubbo holding a 1-0 lead for the opening 20 minutes before Bathurst equalised.

But Souths ran away with it in the second, dominating possession and slotting four more goals past Lions keeper Gavin Weekes to secure the victory.

"I thought we played really well in the first half and probably half of the second half and then we just ran out of puff, legs and they came back strong like they always do," Waters said after the game.

"Credit to them, they're a well-drilled side but we're really happy with how we played for probably three quarters of the game which is probably better than we've done all season."

Young gun Hayden Lew put Dubbo on the board within the first minute of play, taking the entire Souths line by surprise as well as many of his teammates.

A scrambling Lions defence then held out Souths for most of the first period as the visitors made play after play into the circle, including a near miss by forward Jonathan Cole, to no avail.

Keeper Gavin Weekes made a series of heroic saves before Adam Campbell got Souths the equaliser.

But after the break it was the Souths' show. Cole scored twice, Campbell got his second and Michael Stanford added another when he dived to tap in a cross that flew across the face of goal.

"For us the first thing was to get the points," Souths coach Ray Winwood-Smith said.

"We've also been working on a number of things that we wanted to make sure we actually applied to today's game which we did.

"The first 10 minutes we were still a bit asleep. I think Dubbo came out with a lot more energy than us and caught us on the back foot. As the game went on we got better control and started to play the structure that we needed to play and I think pretty much after about the 15 minutes we controlled the game pretty much from there on."

But Waters said the Lions, who haven't won since round one, will take a number of positives out of the game.

"To actually score first was great and to see young guys like Hayden step up and score that early in the game was fantastic," he said.

"We defended well, backs and halves all season have probably played really well we've just struggled in the attacking 25 but it's starting to get there. We're getting further and further down the field when we play.

"So some really good positives out of it...it's probably the best we've played all season. Everyone lifted and until we got too tired in the last part it was great."

o BATHURST SOUTHS 5 (Adam Campbell 2, Jonathan Cole 2, Michael Stanford) def DUBBO LIONS 1 (Hayden Lew)