The Raiders ran in nine tries in their win, which moves them to third place with one week remaining in the regular season.

The news isn’t as good for the Magpies though, as they now face a nervous week in their hunt for a finals berth.

The equation for them is simple – win and they are in, lose and they will need Macquarie to beat Narromine.

Both teams had plenty to play for on Sunday but Macquarie looked sharp from the outset as Mason Williams scored in just the second minute of play.

That set the catalyst for a four-try first stanza that had Macquarie in front 22-16 at the break courtesy of a Jeremy Smith four-pointer right on the siren.

Forbes levelled in the early stages of the second half, but the loss of halfback Matt Roylance and hooker Hayden Bolam rattled Forbes.

From that point they were never really in the contest and Macquarie played enterprising football to run out comfortable winners.

“It was a big game for us and we performed well,” Raiders skipper Anthony Egan-Smith said.

“We probably played 60 minutes of good football but we need to work on getting a good 80 together.

“But we’ve booked finals, and now we’re in that top three we want to win next week, stay there and give ourselves two shots in the finals.”

Forbes skipper Jake Grace said his side was simply outplayed.

“We both had a lot to gain from winning today, but they were too good,” he said.

“We went away from our gameplan, which is to get into a grind with sides, and we tried to play ad-lib footy.

“We’ve put ourselves in a tough spot going into a game with Parkes next week but we lift for the local derby and if we can win that it will be a good bit of confidence to carry hopefully into the finals.”

DUBBO MACQUARIE 46 (Mason Williams 2, Ash Widders 2, Viliame Turuva, Kinni Tanaulucavu, Kiyan Shaw, Jeremy Smith, Wade Peachey tries; Williams 4, Damien Wells goals) def FORBES MAGPIES 26 (Zac Merritt, Matt Roylance, Ben Maguire, Warren Baxter, Ben Robinson tries; Nick Greenhalgh 2, Traie Merritt goals)