MANGOPLAH-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes coach Marie Hope believes a tough early schedule will be a benefit for her side as they look to build on the success of the past two year.
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The Goannas backed up their 2019 Riverina League flag by winning last year's AFL Riverina Championships, and recovered from a slow start in Saturday's grand final rematch against Wagga Tigers before prevailing 34-26.
The visitors trailed by seven goals at quarter time as they looked to integrate the new-look shooting combination of Romy Stephens and youngster Kaylah Upfield but reverted back to Ash Reynoldson to erase the deficit.
It was the Goannas' first game of the year, while the Tigers are still winless after they were beaten by a goal at Leeton-Whitton in round one.
MCUE hosts Griffith this week, who backed up a round one draw against Collingullie-Glenfield Park with a 53-31 win over Leeton-Whitton the weekend, before they travel to unbeaten Coolamon.
"I think Griffith might be pretty strong and Coolamon too," Hope said.
"It's a good thing for us coming up against a couple of strong teams early so you don't get lulled into a false sense of security and you can test yourself against the tougher sides.
"In the first quarter we had a new shooting combination going on so we reverted back to a returning player from last year in Ash Reynoldson, which gave us a bit more flow and we went from there.
"We've got a full season this year so we've got time to work on specifics, to work on combinations and individual players."
Wing attack Mikaela Cole expects the competition to be tighter than ever this year.
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"I don't think there's going to be many easy games this year. It's a bit of an unknown not knowing who's picked up players," she said.
"It's not easy playing catch up but I thought we clawed our way back pretty well after the first quarter and pushed on from there."
Elsewhere Coolamon edged out Collingullie-Glenfield Park 40-37 and Turvey Park notched their first win against Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong 40-37.
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