Orange Emus defeated Orange City 31-10 at Wade Park

The 31-10 triumph marks the greens' third win in-a-row as they move to outright first on the table, while the Lions are amid the exact opposite, dropping a trio of games after winning the opener.

Like they've done so many times this season, Emus kicked off the contest in scintillating style, taking a 22-5 lead into the break after first-half tries to Tom Joseph, Lachie Harris, Jack Marchinton and Shahid Khalfan.

The imposing lead turned into a match-winning one for Emus, but according to two-try standout Tom Joseph, it wasn't a perfect display.

"It's not a bad result but we obviously dropped off there in a couple of periods late in the second half," Joseph said.

"That's obviously one thing we need to work on... it's just rounding out those games. It's happened a couple of times to us now."

And according to Joseph, those 80-minute performances will come once all of the side's combinations are in order.

"We haven't had the same back line for two weeks in-a-row yet," he said.

"It's going to take a few weeks to put everything together. That's only Gus's [Roberts] third game at 10 so we're still getting used to playing outside him.

"It's pretty easy playing outside him, though. He's so good and the holes just open up for us."

Roberts was good, as were a host of players from the winning side, but Roberts didn't hesitate when asked to highlight a standout performer.

"Marcho [Jack Marchinton]... every week he's improved and he received three points again tonight," he said.

"He just not slowing down and I really don't think he's going to. He just gets better and better the more he plays."

For Orange City's troops, it was the case of same old story, except for five-eighth Traye Hodge who played his first ever derby.

"I heard a lot about this game in the lead-up and the pre-season," Hodge said.

"We marked this game as the big one for our calendar and you can really see the quality they have. They're so strong across the park.

"There's no weaknesses there and they're really well-drilled. They know what they want to do and they took us off our game tonight."

A fresh set of eyes might be just what Orange City needs to get that long-awaited win over their rivals, and Hodge gave some insight into what needs to change in future meetings.

"The biggest killer for us was our mistakes," he said.

"Our penalties and our dropped balls. We didn't look after possession well. When we had phases and we built momentum we actually did really well.

"We got some momentum tonight and proved that we can score a couple of times but those little lapses killed us and we can't afford to make mistakes in our own end."

EMUS 31 (Tries; Tom Joseph 2, Lachie Harris, Jack Marchinton, Shahid Khalfan. Conversions; Nigel Staniforth 3) defeated LIONS 10 (Tries; Kieran Bonin, AJ McNiven)

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