Great Western Lions started their new season with a touch of last year's attitude as they went down by a big margin against SMW Rovers in round one of the Mininera District Football League.
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The Lions had a new look team with a new coach and prior to the first bounce, the feeling around the club was a good one.
While they were never out of the match, the Lions slipped into some bad habits for the result to blow out by the end of the final quarter.
Coach Andrew Bach was disappointed with the final result.
"We are all disappointed with how we finished," Bach said.
"There were times we played some good football, but our decision making let us down.
"Credit to SMW Rovers though because they played a pretty good brand of football."
Just five minutes in Lions lost their key ruckman, Rayne Salmon to injury. With Salmon going down Shannon Notting and Matt Bourke tried to fill the void. However the Lions structure was clearly affected.
Tom McCord put in a solid four quarter effort to be the best for the Lions and Aaron Williams also impressed.
Other honourable mentions were Ben Hustler and Nick Thomas.
Great Western players were run off their feet for the last quarter and it became evident who had and hadn't made it to training.
SMW Rovers were in control heading into the final term and a couple of quick goals secured the four points.
Rovers kicked five unanswered goals to win 17.13.115 to Great Westerns 7.9.51.
"We got tired, but they wanted the ball more, used the ball better and ran harder than what we did from the start," Bach said.
"They came to play and as soon as we were behind, we dropped our heads and got frustrated.
"When we played high pressure football we looked good too, but we could only do it in dribs and drabs."
Great Western will keep working on how they want to play over the next few training sessions.
