Moama downed by tough Deni

Moama co-coach Jye Warren was left to rue a number of missed opportunities in front of the big sticks in the third term, during which the Magpies kicked five behinds without a major, as Deni opened up a decisive lead.

“We just had our opportunities in front of goal early on and missed those opportunities, and unfortunately Deni took those chances and didn't miss,” he said.

“We hit the post twice that quarter and missed another one out in front, so potentially could've been going into the last quarter pretty even (if we took those chances).”

A 25-point margin at three-quarter time was stretched in the final term as Moama managed just one goal to Deniliquin’s four, as the Rams cruised to the eventual 47-point win.

But Warren is optimistic his side will be able to bounce back. A number of experienced campaigners were missing from the side on Saturday, while the strong crop of young players impressed again.

“I don't want to take anything away from Deni, Deni were impressive, and like I said they've got some great footballers,” he said.

“I just feel we had a fair few personnel down for us going into the game. We were pretty young, which is no excuse, our kids played really well, but like we spoke about the week before, that experience was unfortunately lacking a little bit there across our centre line.

“Zac Stovell got knocked out, so he went down pretty early. Unfortunately we missed him.

“But I think our side can beat anyone in the comp, and most teams would have that same thinking about themselves.

“Without taking credit away from Deniliquin, they were the better side and they played extremely well, but I just think that if we had a full side in and a bit more leadership out there, things might have been a bit different.”

There were plenty of positives that Warren was able to pick out from the loss, notably the performances of a few young guns.

Archie Teasdale, who made his full debut despite still being a member of the under-17 side, and Max McCarty, the under-17 sub, drew praise from Warren for the roles they played, with the coach also remaining upbeat despite the defeat.

“The positive thing is the first quarter we were with them, second quarter we were with them,” he said.

“We came out after half-time and missed a few opportunities in front of goal, and Deni took that with both hands and ran away with it.

“The positive thing is it’s early in the year and we’ve got plenty of games ahead of us to fix (things), so we’re really looking forward to our next few weeks.”

Next week will see Moama travel for the first time this season when it faces Finley, with plenty of reinforcements to come back in, according to Warren.

“Unfortunately we’ve got a couple of the younger guys in Jett Keam and Archie Peat who go back down to school in Melbourne to play footy down there,” he said.

“We'll have a couple of blokes come back which is nice, a couple of leaders that we haven't seen all year.

“Tommy Holman hopefully should be back into the side after going down with a sore knee last weekend. It was a bit of a precautionary week this week for him and hopefully we get him back for Saturday.

“But we’ve got to leave all those things we did wrong on the weekend behind and work on the things we need to work on.

“Finley are another outfit that are pretty incredible, they’ve got some really good, experienced players … so we’ve just got to make sure that we fix those things that we lacked on the weekend.

“It’s a new week for us. We are just going to go into it as a new week and hopefully come home with the chocolates over in Finley.”