IT was certainly fitting that Bathurst Panthers were in a tribute Bathurst Railway jumper on Saturday night, because they had the momentum of a runaway freight train.
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Panthers laid on more than a point a minute in the opening half of their Peter McDonald Premiership match against Cowra and when the final whistle sounded, the scoreboard read 64-10.
Jake Betts' men ran in 11 tries on their way to the commanding win at Carrington Park.
"That's about as good as it gets," the skipper, who once again made a mountain of yards for his side, said.
"That first half we completed 17 out of 19 sets and the two that we dropped were sort of down in the corner when we were attacking. It was a pretty clinical first half performance, I was pretty happy with that."
Wearing the tribute red and green colours as a way to promote Railway's reunion for the title-winning 1980 and 1981 teams, prior to kick-off Panthers spoke about doing them justice.
As they laid on four tries in the first 20 minutes to open the contest, the intent Panthers had to do just that was clear.
"A few of the old boys came and done a jersey preso before the game and they spoke about how special the jersey was to them. They're all coming back 40 years later to celebrate and that's just how good footy is," Betts said.
"We spoke about doing the jersey proud and we did that today."
The waves of attack from Panthers kept coming and from right across the paddock - Daniel Bain crashing straight through the middle of the ruck, while down the right edge centre Keelan Bresac produced a 50 metre effort.
The score hit 42-0 five minutes out from the break after Dylan Miles crossed and Willie Wright booted conversion number six, but there was one more bit of pain for Cowra.
With a minute left on the clock fullback Darcy Howard was sinbinned for lying on a tackled player.
It took just four minutes after play resumed for Panthers to add to their tally, Doolan leaping to knock a Noah Griffiths bomb back to his team-mates and a handful of passes later McCoy White crossed.
A Griffiths stab kick set up try nine for Mackenzie Atkins and Panthers cracked 50 points, but following that came Cowra's best period of football for the match.
Hooker and captain Jack Nobes plus front rower Will Ingram worked hard to give the Magpies good field position and they were rewarded with a try on each edge - wingers Josh Weston and Tom Thuaux crossing.
But fittingly Panthers responded with another two tries, Tom Lemmich throwing a nice dummy on his way to scoring between the sticks while Betts iced the performance with one of his own with 28 seconds remaining.
Wright finished with 10 conversions from 11 attempts.
"There was probably a five or 10 minute period there where we were falling off tackles, but that's to be expected when you're up by that much," Betts said.
"I would've liked to keep them to zero, but I'm pretty happy with that."
BATHURST PANTHERS 64 (Desi Doolan, Jeremy Gordon, Josh Rivett, Keelan Bresac, Dylan Miles, Daniel Bain, Dave Sellers, McCoy White, Mackenzie Atkins, Tom Lemmich, Jake Betts tries; Willie Wright 10 goals) defeated COWRA MAGPIES 10 (Josh Weston, Tom Thuaux tries; Tom Rose goal)
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