Moama shows plenty of grit to outlast Rumbalara

Co-coach Jye Warren expressed disappointment with the effort in the opening term, which saw the Pies enter the first break down by 13 points.

“We just got caught napping in the first quarter,” he said.

“We didn't play man-on-man footy, our midfielders just thought they were going to win the easy ball and take the game on.

“Rumbalara definitely came to play, and they've got a very impressive, young outfit, so to their credit they played extremely well.”

But Moama willed itself into the contest, kicking four straight goals in the second quarter to enter the main break just four points in arrears.

However, a woeful third term in front of goal saw the Pies squander their dominance, kicking 1.9 for the quarter as opposed to Rumba’s 3.2, meaning they faced a deficit of nine points with a quarter left to play.

The arm wrestle was won by Moama in the end, keeping Rumbalara goalless in the final quarter to hit the front for the first time all day and secure a gritty 12-point win.

“Everything that we didn't do in the first half, we excelled at in the last half,” Warren said.

“I was really impressed with how the boys went about it in the last quarter, it could have been easy (to) just give up and let Rumbalara run away with it, but the boys dug in deep and our leaders really stood up, which is great.

“One player in particular, Sam Hooppell, (he’s a) young bloke, first year in the seniors, but he played like he's played 150 games by tackling.

“(He) just kept resetting at stoppages and he wasn't afraid to throw his body in there and try and stop the Rumbalara players from getting the ball on the outside.”

Moama brought in a number of experienced campaigners in the off-season to try and add some knowledge for late-game situations, which stems from the heartbreaking preliminary final loss to Mulwala last year.

With the game on the line in the final term on Saturday, Warren said all of that experience was on show, and went a long way towards getting over the line.

“I think we’re going to be speaking of this bloke a fair bit throughout the year, but Tom Holman, he went forward for us for the last half and just was a great option down there,” he said.

“He slowed the game down when we needed to when he marked up the ground a little bit more, but just when we didn't have many options we kicked it down the line to him, and if he didn’t mark it, it was knocked out of bounds for a reset with the throw in.

“So that experience with that fella (Holman) in our side was exceptional, and the other guys across the board did their bit.

“A couple of us went down to the backline, Jake Kilmartin and myself have played a fair bit of footy now, and we had to play a couple of negating roles down in the backline and steady the ship a little bit.

“Like I've said in the past, we want to nullify those situations where it's real close, but when it comes down to that arm wrestle, we've learned a lot out of those prelims by losing by just over a goal.”

Moama will reload for a massive clash with Deniliquin at home this Saturday, with the Rams set to enter the clash off the back of a confidence-boosting win over Nathalia.

“You can't get caught napping against Deniliquin, they've recruited really, really well,” Warren said.

“They've been thereabouts the last few years, they've got some great talent there, some great experienced players that have been there for a long, long time, and having a really good pre-season with their recruiting, I think it's going to make their life a lot easier.

“We felt that we only played 15 to 20 minutes of exceptional football on the weekend, so we need to do that for four quarters this weekend to beat Deni.”