THE Dubbo Kangaroos have continued their winning form in the Blowes Clothing Cup, piling on the tries to down the Narromine Gorillas 43-8 at No. 1 Oval.
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Slow to start in their season opener against the Bathurst Bulldogs, the cobwebs were nowhere to be seen as the Roos led 24-3 into the break.
Narromine had little in reply, but kept their heads up to claim a try late in the day. Captain Craig Campbell said Dubbo deserved the win, but commended his troops for soldiering on.
"We showed a lot of heart against a better team, but we've got a lot of improvement I reckon," Campbell said.
"Our fitness is not great and we have minimum preparation but we're just short of manpower I suppose and our skill level is not quite where we want it to be.
"The first half of the season is building for us, the second half I think, if we can keep the same team we'll go a bit better in the second round."
The Roos got on the board first on Saturday courtesy of James Elliot, who muscled his way over from the ruck in the centre of the park. Anthony Goulding put the ball over for his first successful conversion of the night, giving the Roos a 7-0 lead.
Narromine got themselves on the board a short time later, with Henry Buttsworth slotting in a penalty goal - redemption for a missed shot just minutes earlier - to take the score to 7-3.
It was the closest the Gorillas would get to the Roos on the scoreboard, with the home side quickly extending their lead through Isaac Kinscher before Henry Buttsworth was sent off for swearing.
With the Gorillas at 14 men, the Roos piled on another two tries: the first through Teddy Bates, and the second a spectacular individual try from Kinscher.
Kinscher's second saw him collect the ball just shy of halfway, step around two Gorillas and then push past two more to muscle his way over the line.
The Roos continued their dominance after half-time, with Elliot and Bates both going over a second time and youngster Josh Exner going over for his first to take the score to 43-3.
A Narromine regroup put the Roos on the back foot, with some persistent and aggressive attack eventually getting centre Justin Clarke in position to force his way over.
Roos captain Filisone Pauta said the side had spent the week focusing on getting into gear earlier in the game.
"After last week, through our training this week we've been talking about us having a slow start and we knew coming up against Narromine we couldn't afford to have a slow start," Pauta said.
"We were trying to work on that and we managed to have a pretty good start - not a perfect start - but it's pretty good, better than last week. For the win - all glory goes to God."
The Roos knew they were in for a very physical match-up against Narromine, Pauta said, and a decision to create holes by moving the ball around more paid off.
He said the next focus would be getting the side to stick to their game plan, which would become more important as the season wears on.
"I think what we need to improve on is just playing out our game plan throughout the game," he said.
"Some periods of the game we're showing our game plan and then we go away from it...against real good sides we can't afford to do that.
"So I think we've got to practice just staying calm and getting through our game plan and having fun."
DUBBO KANGAROOS 43 (James Elliot 2, Isaac Kinscher 2, Ted Bates 2, Josh Exner tries; Anthony Goulding 4 conversions) def NARROMINE GORILLAS 8 (Justin Clarke try; Henry Buttsworth pen goal)
