The greens held a 17-9 lead at the break before Dubbo halfback Pat Berryman gave his side a sniff with a converted try just one minute into the new half.

But after that it was one-way traffic as Emus crossed the stripe another four times to pick up their eighth win of the season.

Emus skipper Nigel Staniforth, who scored a double, lauded his side’s defensive effort, saying the greens were able to take the momentum they gained from continually turning Roos away and turn that into points at the other end.

“That’s probably the most pleasing thing for me, the defensive effort,” Staniforth said.

“Roos did score 16 points, but nine of them came from penalty goals and then they scored a pretty opportunistic try, which happens.

“Dubbo controlled the ball well and held onto it for substantial periods at times, but we kept them out and almost every time afterwards we marched up and added points, we scored virtually every time we got into their red zone.

“It was definitely one of our better performances, we’ve been working on making sure we build some forward momentum and retain the ball better, and we did that well [on Saturday].”

While pleased with his side’s application, Roos skipper Shaun McHugh said Emus were simply “too good”.

He did admit the visitors’ defensive effort left plenty to be desired, particularly under pressure inside their own half.

“Effort was a thing we are pleased with, the effort was there, but we’re certainly not pleased with the result, not after we started so well,” McHugh said, his side was the better in the opening exchanges.

“We were really good in the first 10 or 15, which I think Emus would attest to, but after that we just let in soft tries, too many soft tries. We did the same thing against (Bathurst) Bulldogs. Emus walked through us three or four times in that second half, every time they got in our 22 they scored.

“We worked hard all week on that all week and spoke about our attitude in defence during the week, so it’s disappointing that we then don’t put it on the field.”​