'It's about time': Stockton the star as Dragons run down brave Cowboys

The Mudgee halfback crossed for three of his side's six secondhalf tries as the Dragons defeated the Cowboys 36-10 on Saturday, June 15.

After a disappointing first half by their own standards, Mudgee were just too good for a brave Cowboys outfit.

While they may sit clear at the top of the Peter McDonald Premiership ladder, Stockton gave a pretty simple assessment of his own performance.

"It's about time," he said of his hat-trick.

A minute silence was held before the match to pay respect to the life of Wellington Cowboy Graham Peckham who died earlier in the week.

The Cowboys came out of the blocks firing, with Taylor Cubby scoring in the corner just four minutes into the match.

"It's hard to be honest, I'm just really proud of the effort today," Wellington's Justin Toomey-White said.

"Three wins from four (games against Mudgee) ain't bad. We had some boys playing reserve grade who were supposed to start in first grade and they backed up.

"It's just a proud effort, Mudgee are a great team. They are hard to beat away or at home. We'll take some positives out of that."

Down on troops, several Cowboys were forced to play in different positions including Jacob Wilson who found himself on the wing.

However, Wilson looked at home in the new spot and crossed to score the Cowboys' next try.

Mudgee coach Clay Priest opted to start himself on the bench and made an immediate impact when he eventually came on, scoring next to the posts with Harrison Hopkins converting the try.

A penalty goal to Wellington on the stroke of half-time gave the Cowboys a 10-6 lead heading into the break but Mudgee admitted post-game they were quite ordinary.

"It was scrappy at the start, we came after the first half and spoke about it," Stockton said.

"We came out in the second half and executed, we were heaps better.

"We started slow, we didn't train the best yesterday (Friday) so the warm-up was a bit scrappy.

"That led straight into the first half."

Mudgee's Tom Lawson was ruled out for the game with a head knock forcing the Dragons to make some changes for the second half but it was their experienced players who stood up.

Stockton was the first man to score for Mudgee before tries to Hopkins, Nathan Orr and Camden Sutton capped off an incredible 13 minutes for the Dragons.

The Mudgee playmaker crossed for two more tries, both of which came with his brother, Wil standing next to him.

"It is real good having him the big unit next to me, he's going good," he said.