Magpies soar too high for Hawks

One such opportunity was in round 13 against a struggling Barooga side, with Moama succinctly demolishing the visitors on Saturday.

The contest was essentially over in the first term, with the Magpies piling on six goals and behinds, leaving the Hawks scoreless at quarter-time and taking a 42-point lead.

While Barooga managed to string some scoring possessions together, putting in a pair of goals and a trio of behinds for the quarter, Moama continued to dominate with another six goals and four behinds.

The Magpies weren’t going to let up as the game went on, keeping their foot on the throat as they limited the Hawks to a pair of behinds for the third period while Moama went four and four, increasing an already substantial lead to 93.

Barooga had their most productive stretch in the final quarter, kicking four goals and a behind. Still, it was nowhere near enough to stop a blistering Moama side from kicking a further three goals and five behind to take the victory by a staggering 91 points.

Moama coach Jye Warren was happy with how his squad played and mentioned Bendigo Pioneers young guns Lachlan Hogan and Jobe Shanahan, who starred for the Magpies on Saturday.

“It was pretty pleasing how we played; we had a bit of turnaround with players, so we had a lot come in,” he said.

“We were very fortunate to have Lachlan Hogan and Jobe Shanahan come in from the Bendigo Pioneers. We’ve had Lachlan coming in and out for most of the year, but Jobe Shanahan played his first game for us on the weekend.

“(Shanahan) was instrumental for us; he’s an absolute athlete, and I think everyone’s eyes lit up on Thursday night when we got the all-clear for him to play.

“He was everywhere as a centre-half-forward, swapping into the midfield as a ruck rover; he’s so athletic and has a clean pair of hands.”

“The great thing about Jobe is that he is a real team player. He probably could have kicked eight but passed a few, which is quite nice.”

While not indicative of how the Magpies will stack up against finals teams, the performance was a positive for the group, who look to round into form as they come up against three teams in the top six in the next three weeks, including competition leaders Congupna in round 16.

Moama will now travel to face the sixth-placed Denniliquin Rams next week in what will be a more legitimate test of the Magpies’ strength.

MNL

Much like the football, Moama’s A-grade netball had a field day against Barooga at home, where it came away with a resounding victory over the last-placed side.

Both teams came out of the date relatively strong, but Moama led at quarter-time, notching 12 goals to the Hawks’ six.

Barooga continued a strong run in the second quarter, adding 10 goals, yet it couldn’t keep up with the Magpies relentless attack, scoring 14 to take a 10-goal lead at half-time.

Moama continued to up the ante throughout the game, piling on 20 goals in the third term and holding the Hawks to four to extend their lead to 26 heading into the final period.

With the game on the line, Barooga could only manage six goals in the last quarter, while Moama refused to let up, contributing 16 to its total.

In the end, Moama won convincingly over Barooga, with the final score being 62 to 26.

The Magpies will travel to Denniliquin next week to face a hungry fourth-placed Rams side looking to improve their standing in the run home to finals.