Ross Willoughby led from the front, touching down six times during the demolition, but despite Stags' incredible tally of 20 tries it was something else about his side that most pleased coach Troy Perkins.

"Ross put in an outstanding effort. But the most impressive part for me was how our youngsters played," the Australian said. "We had a 16-year-old, two 17-year-olds and an 18-year-old playing all with little or no first team experience and they all played extremely well.

"It shows that the first team is starting to reap the benefits of our youth system."

Stags had the game won well before half time as the depleted Lions saw Dave Afreh crash over three times for his second hat-trick in two games.

This was matched by Willoughby who also claimed a first-half treble.

Oliver O'Mara, Christian Champion and Mark Coulson all touched down in the first period, with Coulson adding three of what would be 16 goals in a 36 point personal haul to put Stags 50-4 ahead at the break.

Within 11 minutes of the restart Willoughby had added another two to his tally for the day, with Luke Antos, Kane Phillips and Jack Moon all crossing to get their names on the scoreboard.

As the Stags' support reached for the calculators, Lions' prop Simon Flemming added to Kirk Lambert's earlier try snatch back some pride for the visitors.

But the blazing heat had the Lions running on empty, and Stags soon took advantage— a flurry of tries helping the home side to leapfrog Liverpool Buccaneers into sixth spot.

Willoughby was again on the scoresheet with Dapo Adelwole, Sean Johnson, Shaun Wall also dotting down, and O'Mara scoring to complete his hat trick.

Stags next two fixtures are tough away games at the top two— Bramley and then Celtic Colts. But Perkins is confident if they play to their best they can take something from both games.

"The games will be a really good test of how far we have come," he said. "We have won three out of four games, and although the next two will be difficult all we can do is give our best and if we do we have a chance of competing and hopefully coming away with a result.

"I have set the team a target of winning four of the last seven games. If we can do that I think we will make the play-offs and anything can happen from there."