The Lions ran over the top of their opponents for the second week in a row, with Matthews saying most of the side had benefited from being able to complete full pre-seasons.
Some home ground luxuries might also have helped to provide an edge.
"There are a couple of dozen players, and most of them are playing at the moment, who had a really solid summer," Matthews said.
"The testing results at the end of January indicated there was good aerobic capacity and, most importantly, it's showing in games.
"I think the visiting team always struggles a little bit more here in warm conditions. We've got the home changerooms - which have the cold room and the cold plunge baths that the club has invested in.
"You don't necessarily think you are going to use them that much on game days but at half-time today, most of our guys stripped off and immersed themselves in the freezing cold water for five or six minutes."
The Lions' 4-2 record will have surprised some observers but Matthews refuses to buy into the line of thought that his side is exceeding expectations.
"I don't go into the season with expectations. You just want to be competitive every time you play," Matthews said.
"If you are competitive every time you play and you win enough games, you might play finals at the end of the year but you don't give it a whole lot of thought.
"We've done no goal-setting, for instance. Goal-setting for a game is critical, but goal-setting for a season is a waste of time.”
Jonathan Brown threw a late scare into the Lions camp when he fell heavily after a strong mark and spent the closing stages of the game on bench.
But Matthews said his star forward suffered little more than a jarring fall and did not aggravate the hip injury that sidelined him for the final 12 games of last season.
"He landed on his back and he was a bit sore. We don't think it was any worse than him just having landed on it," Matthews said.
"But given that he's been a bit fragile in that area and has broken down in that part of the body, we got him off to make a certainly of it - rather than having him run around for the rest of the game."
