That was the blunt but honest appraisal from Orange Emus coach Pete Bromley after his side went down 19-10 to Bathurst Bulldogs in their Blowes Cup season opener on Saturday.

Having gone through their season 2020 campaign undefeated to make it four premierships in seven years, Emus carried plenty of expectations with them to Ashwood Park.

After a scrappy first half Emus led 10-5 - all points having coming from outside centre Nigel Staniforth - but they could not add to that tally in the 40 minutes which followed.

Though not lacking in effort, execution errors hurt the defending premiers.

"I wouldn't expect anything from round one other than a scrappy game, but look, we just weren't good enough," Bromley said.

"Simple fact was it wasn't a great game, it wasn't a spectacle for anyone, but we just weren't good enough."

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With a tournament at Boorowa a month ago the only pre-season match preparation the Emus had, it was expected they'd be a little rusty on Saturday and they were.

But the Emus did have heart - they held Bulldogs out for a 10-minute period in the second half after Sam Greatbatch was yellow carded - and that's something Bromley can build on.

"We did well when we were down to 14 players for 10 minutes but we couldn't do that when we had 15, that was the disappointing thing, that it took something like that to spark us rather than actually doing it from the get go," he said.

"That's what comes from round one and getting into the season, it's always an interesting to search your way through it.

"We had a few problems with the scrum, wasn't good enough there, couldn't set a platform and from there everything sort of fell away.

"We just didn't get the cherries today, we missed three goals, but that's sport.

"It's round one, there are 14 left, it's a long season. As I said to the boys 'You don't enjoy losing and you all look disappointed, but the fact is we have 14 games to get it right and every week we've got to improve'.

"That's what we've got to do now, the bar has been set, we've just got to keep improving each week."

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