Moama on precipice of grand final places

By Matthew Kappos

Sep 11, 2024

Moama negotiated a tough encounter with Deniliquin at the weekend and must now get past Finley to earn a grand final place. Photo: MFNC

Preliminary finals week is here in the Murray league and Moama has three opportunities to join the cast of football sides on grand final day.

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Barooga Recreation Reserve will host a stacked slate of action, with the Magpies featuring in the senior, under-17, and under-14 football ties.

After falling to Mulwala in the last two preliminary finals, Moama’s senior side is looking to finally break through to the decider as it takes on Finley on Saturday

This time around, the Magpies feel they’re the strongest they’ve been over those three seasons.

“The last two years, unfortunately, we’ve limped into a prelim with a handful of injuries and those blokes had to play in those prelims,” said co-coach Jye Warren.

“No discredit to Mulwala because we know how good they are, but we’re fit and firing (this year), and that’s where we’ve wanted to be all year.

“We’ve had a few injuries throughout the year, we’ve had over 53 senior players play this year (but) we’re very fortunate that we are going to have a fit, healthy list and it’s going to be quite hard to make selection this week.”

The Magpies and the Cats were neck-and-neck in the race for second spot through most of the regular season, with Finley eventually edging out Moama by a game.

The only regular-season meeting, back in round four between the sides ended in a comfortable victory for the Magpies.

On that day, a pair of four-goal hauls to Danny Brewster and Mitchell Lake helped Moama secure a 64-point win, and it will be hoping for a repeat of that performance come Saturday.

However, Finley has been a much-improved side since that encounter, only two rounds later going on to hand Congupna its first, and only, loss of the season.

“I’ve got the utmost respect for Finley; they haven’t gone out and gone crazy on the recruiting front, they’ve backed in their locals, and they’ve got a few recruits, but they’re going to be hard side on to match up with on the weekend,” said Warren.

“We don’t think that we’re going to just walk into a grand final we know that this is going to be down to the wire.

“I am going to pick it now, she’ll come down to the last few minutes of the last quarter.

“They’re an extremely impressive outfit, so we’ve got to bring our A-game, and hopefully, a few things fall in our favour.”

Under-17s

In the under-17s, Moama will take on Mulwala, looking to book a spot against Cobram in the decider.

The Magpies earned the minor premiership but were upset by the Tigers in the semi-final by 29 points.

Moama hadn’t previously tasted defeat since round one and will need to rebound against the Lions, who the Magpies edged by a single point in their only meeting of the season.

Under-14s

The Magpies opposition is reversed in the under-14s, with Cobram the assignment this weekend and Mulwala waiting in the wings to take on the winner.

Moama was minor premier of the competition thanks to its superior percentage but was downed by the Lions in a tight semi-final contest 4.5 (29) to 4.10 (34).

The Magpies’ only previous loss came at the hands of Saturday’s opponents when the sides met in round 10 and Moama will need to turn that performance around to earn a second shot at Mulwala on the final day.