It was the Devils first victory against top four opposition this season but, with a final round bye to come, it will see them take valuable momentum into what will be a minor semi-final showdown with Thirroul in week one of the finals.

It was a performance spearheaded by young halves Justin Rodrigues and Zac Greene who laid on five tries between them in what was undoubtedly the Devils best performance of the season.

Having toiled hard for little reward in big matches this season, Wests assistant coach Pete McLeod said the win will ensure they take plenty of confidence into the play-off matches in two weeks time.

“Our halves were really good today,” McLeod said.

“They work really hard, they’re the first to training and the last to leave. They’re good mates and they’re only young so there’s a big future for them but to get a win today on the back of the way they played was great for us.

“It’s good for the confidence of all the boys. We’ve got a lot of young guys and they’ve worked hard all year so to get the win was a good reward for them.”

While plenty observers had already penciled in joint league leaders Dapto and Collies for a grand final showdown, Rodrigues said his side wanted to make a statement in their last hit-out of the regular season.

“We knew we had to beat a top four side going into the semis,” Rodrigues said.

“We had a draw last week [against Thirroul] but everyone knows that’s no win so to show we were some sort of chance of winning the comp we had to stamp some authority today.

“Everyone’s been talking about a two-horse race between Collies and Dapto so we wanted to show we’re here, we’re Wests, and we’re as good a chance as anyone this year.”

The signs looked ominous for the visitors early on with the Dogs jumping out to a 10-0 lead after 16 minutes through tries to Saxon Onur and Daniel Bourke, though the latter’s try proved Collies’ last journey into the Devils half in the opening stanza.

The Devils opened there account through Junior Vaivai who strolled across untouched from a Rodrigues long-ball. Lachlan Hurst scored same edge two minuts before the break to take a 12-10 lead.

The margin looked likely to hold at the break before Vaivai scored his second from a pinpoint Rodrigues grubber on the stroke of halftime to take a 16-10 lead into the interval.

Matthew Delbanco scored four minutes after the resumption 20-10 but Jordan Bowles cut the margin back to six five minutes later. Kurt Field extended the margin again with an athletic finish to a grubber from Greene.

Jordan Harty got his side back within six when he reeled in a cross-field kick from Ben Jones but the visitors hot back again off the boot of Greene who laid on Vaivai’s hat-trick.

Alec Reid scored a late try to get back within eight but it was as close as the Dogs got with coach Nathan Fien conceding a pair of clashes against Dapto may have taken their toll on his side.

“I thought we started pretty well, and that was the way we wanted to come off the Dapto game with our intensity, but we were probably a little off today in the end,” Fien said.

“We just didn’t have our fair share of ball. They got a few repeat sets and we were just camped in our own half for the entire [first] 40. I thought we did well to hang on there but we just chewed up too much juice and couldn’t get up when we needed to.

“They were very good, they’ve got next week off, and they were definitely up for it. They took us on through the middle and, on the back of our errors, they were able to get the two points.

“We might have been a bit spent from those two games against Dapto but that’s what’s in front of us in a few weeks time so we need to dust ourselves off and keep going forward.”

Also on Saturday, Thirroul hammered Corrimal 74-4 at Ziems Park while Helensburgh beat Berkeley 32-22 at Berkeley Sports Ground.