Kempsey Cannonballs' pre-season focus from coach Jared Fuller was on simplifying the way they played the game.
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After a steady start to the season, the Kempsey-based side are warming to the task and have quietly climbed the ladder.
The Cannonballs muscled up and out-gunned the Southern Cross University Marlins in a classy 43-12 victory at Kempsey on Saturday, June 23.
Kempsey came out firing and scored in the first three minutes with their electric No.10 Harry Mainey crossing out wide.
The game tightened up after Marlins' Oli Canning scored and converted a try to level the scores to seven-all after 20 minutes.
Kempsey hit back a few minutes later and a try on the halftime siren stretched the score to 21-7.
Kempsey picked up where they left off in the second half, doing the little things right to run in more tries and record a dominant victory.
"I thought we were really good in patches," Fuller said. "We controlled the set-piece really well and our defence was largely quite good.
"The effort and attitude of players turning up for one another in defence has been great all year. It's something that we have been proud of and it was evident there again on the weekend."'
Stephan Blair had a Kempsey Cannonball first grade debut to remember after a dominant performance.
"Stephan Blair was fantastic for us," Fuller said. "He's such a classy player and he opens up space for the guys around us which is what we've been looking for.
"Steve Keir was also good for us as he carried the ball down the field and got through a mountain of work in the middle."
Fuller said a few sloppy plays around the goalpost allowed the Marlins to get two tries at the hands of Oli Canning and Cameron Smith.
"That's something that we will have to fix up throughout the week," he said.
Kempsey have flown under the radar this year. They now have a 4-2 record to sit in fourth place on the ladder and only five competition points away from second place with a game in hand.
"It's a really close competition this year," Fuller said. "We don't want to get too carried away... we just want take it game by game and improve each week.
"It would be amazing to shoot for a top-two finish and have that chance of hosting a grand final, but we have a lot of work to do before we can think about that."
"At no point can we be critical of our effort, but there's still some key areas that I think we still need to execute better moving forward."
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