BLAKE Ferguson's first rugby league game at Bathurst was an occasion that and delivered on the hype, and then some, as the Wellington Cowboys fullback ran in a hat trick in his side's 42-12 Peter McDonald Premiership win on Sunday.
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The Bathurst Panthers had no answer for the former Australia and State of Origin player at Carrington Park during a brutal opening half of play that saw the Cowboys run out to a 28-0 lead at the break.
Ferguson completed his hat trick five minutes into the new half, and even though his side gave up two tries in quick succession the Cowboys never looked in any sort of trouble.
Wellington put on two more tries late in the game to amplify the pain for the hosts.
Ferguson said it was a treat to see his team fired up from the opening minutes.
"We put ourselves in a great position to keep attacking their try line. We just need to keep up that mentally that no matter what's happening out there we've got to keep turning up for each other," he said.
"It's been good to be back home and being around family this year. Hopefully we can keep playing some great football over the next few weeks.
"The last couple of weeks have been pretty tough so coming back and putting in a great 60 minute performance helps.
"We go back to training on Tuesday and start working on next week. We'll be back home for the first time in five weeks. It'll be great to have the Wellington community out there supporting us."
It was one of the scrappiest performances of the season for the Panthers.
The team not only built up an egregious number of errors, forward passes and penalties but committed most of them early in sets.
Outside of a 10 minute window during the second half where they enjoyed multiple sets near the Wellington try line - that resulted in their two tries - Panthers rarely looked like they were in the contest.
"We were pretty ordinary today. There's no two ways about it. We took too steps forward last week against Forbes and then probably eight back today," Panthers coach Jake Betts said.
"Credit to Wello, they played really well, but I think the Eglinton Eels would have beaten us today. That's how good we were.
"We're first grade footy players and we shouldn't be making those sorts of mistakes. It's just simple stuff. We need to be a lot better than that if we want to play finals footy."
The danger signs for Panthers came early when Justin Toomey-White put Ferguson into space for the opening try in the seventh minute, and six minutes later he was in again.
The Wellington attack was on a roll early, pushing the score out to 24-0 inside half an hour when Kiyan Shaw scored off a Seaun Stanley offload and Brock Naden followed that up with a four pointer of his own.
Preston Simpsons punished the Panthers for their continual mistakes by scoring on the left wing five minutes out from the break.
Ferguson crashed over to complete his hat trick shortly after the teams came back out and it looked like the Cowboys were ready to rack up a mammoth score on the Panthers.
The Bathurst men put a brief stop to the rot with tries to Daniel Bain and McCoy White but the Cowboys got themselves back into the groove with a try to Stanley.
A follow up to Jacob Newman pushed the margin back out to 30, where it would stay for the final four remaining minutes.
Ferguson's five conversions gave him 22 points for the game.
WELLINGTON COWBOYS 42 (Blake Ferguson 3, Kiyan Shaw, Brock Naden, Preston Simpson, Seaun Stanley, Jacob Newman tries; Ferguson 5 conversions) defeated BATHURST PANTHERS 12 (Daniel Bain, McCoy White tries; Josh Rivett 2 conversions)
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