The veteran helmsman has presided over two wins and five losses during the opening seven seniors fixtures as he looks to find the right recipe for success – blending talents old and new in the process.
In round seven, there was room for optimism that Lamont is starting to find the right balance within his set-up after a strong second half showing away at Euroa as the visitors came within a whisker of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Having trailed for most of the afternoon at Euroa Memorial Oval, the Cats rallied after half-time to subdue the Magpies in the third quarter before demonstrably bringing the fight to their opponents in the closing period.
With the clock ticking down, Mooroopna came agonisingly close to a comeback, eventually falling to a four-point loss, bowing out 9.9 (63) to 8.11 (59) after notching 17 points in the final term.
That performance in the last stanza at Euroa, still searching for a first win since week four, having last tasted victory at the back-end of April against Shepparton United.
Previous to that, the Cats’ only other win this campaign came in round two in the form of an emphatic 70-point demolition job against Tatura in what was probably their most comprehensive performance of the season.
Now Lamont has run the rule over his side’s fortunes across the term as he prepares to engineer a swift response to a recent run of three consecutive defeats heading into bye week.
“This is the nature of sport, but we’re staying positive,” he said.
“We’ll be licking our wounds heading into bye week and we now have a bit of a reset coming before the next chunk of games.
“We’re still searching for our base-level game and we’re still searching for a performance we are happy with across all four quarters.
“Essential to that is education on our game-plan and young players understanding how we want to play.
“So we’ve still got some work to do and then there’s the execution of (the game-plan) which is the main focus – the understanding of the need to minimising our mistakes.”
While going into more detail about the words of wisdom he has imparted on his players in recent weeks, Lamont was clear in his appraisal that the Cats are moving in the right direction.
“Too many of our mistakes lead to direct goals to the opposition, so we’ve been talking about tightening up our game and the gaps,” he said.
“Our game has been a bit too loose, but that’s young players, so we’re expecting them to keep stepping up and not shrink into their shells and we want our older guys to provide the leadership and direction to them.
“We’ve got a good mix of younger and older guys and all bar one of our players is local and has came through our juniors, so that’s a real positive for the club and the town – we’re growing together.”
Mooroopna will next take to the field on May 30 following on from a bye week in the GVL, with Seymour set to make the trip to the Mooroopna Recreation Reserve in round eight.
This weekend’s One FM 98.5 broadcast game is the Kyabram District League Longwood v Nagambie clash at Longwood Recreation Reserve, live from 1.30pm.
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