Bathurst Panthers beaten 34-6 by Parkes Spacemen at Molong

Then, when the Spacemen scored their third try of the day, it seemed to strip the energy right out of the Panthers for the remainder of the match.

Parkes didn't take a step back as they went on to record a 34-6 victory, with seven different try scorers getting on the board for the Spacemen.

For Panthers it continues a dreary start to their season after they were smashed 60-0 by Dubbo CYMS in their opening round game.

"Parkes were very handy but I thought we were with them for the first 30 minutes or so and then a few things went wrong and we couldn't claw it back," Panthers player-coach Jake Betts said.

"They're just a well drilled side. Chaddy [Porter] does a good job with them. Once they got a roll on we dropped our heads a bit and we didn't react.

"At half-time we spoke about just wanting to compete. We knew if we could do that then we'd be right in it. We just dropped way too much footy and you can't be doing that against really good sides."

Spacemen opened the scoring through big man Takitau Mapapalangi and their centre Timoci Dabea followed up for a converted try before the 20^th minute.

Another member of the Parkes pack, Will Wardle, added his name to the try scorers list in the 28^th minute with a four-pointer that deflated the Panthers.

Following a try early in the second half to Joseph Dwyer it was a three-try run over just a 10 minute span that completely took an already run-down Panthers out of the match.

The sole impact on the scoreboard from the Panthers came at the hour mark through a Hudson White try and a Josh Rivett conversion - the team's first six points of the season.

A back-to-back against Dubbo CYMS and Parkes Spacemen is a rough way to open a season of rugby league but Betts doesn't believe the difficulty of the fixture should be used as some sort of way for the team to try and build up confidence.

"I think that's just the standard for the whole competition, really," he said.

"It's looking like it's going to be quite strong across the board. I think every game is going to be tough. We just need to regroup and go again."

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