COOLAMON wingman Max Hillier believes being thrown to the Lions in round eight was the jolt to the system they needed to realise they need to find another gear to contend for the flag.
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The Hoppers were made to look slow by a ruthless Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong in a 66-point loss in the local derby, and some frank discussions were held within the team to identify the issues they needed to address.
Co-coach Jake Barrett felt they ticked those boxes in a 101-point win over Narrandera last week, but a more accurate test awaits when they host Turvey Park on Sunday.
"Getting beaten by Ganmain pretty comfortably definitely shook us up a bit, there was a few words spoken at training," Hillier said.
"I think we needed a loss just to bring us down a few pegs, and realise we have a lot of work to get up to the top teams like Mango (unbeaten Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes) and Ganmain.
"It may be good for us to have a big loss. They (coaches) sat us down and told us what we need to do to get up to those leading sides."
Coolamon was lucky to escape with a win against Griffith before taking on the Lions, kicking the last four goals to prevail.
But fullback Josh Buchanan felt a loss was needed for the lesson to really hit home.
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"The loss was probably an eye opener, it brought the guys back down to earth. After that game we had a stern discussion about each other and against Narrandera we proved what we can do, we played our best footy I thought," he said.
"Our attitude and intent probably wasn't quite where we wanted it to be. We just needed that talk to put us back in our place.
"We were kissed on the arse against Griffith. We were lucky to get over the line there."
Buchanan said being consistent at the contest and turning that into scoreboard impact were too factors they're looking to address.
Their total of 15.30 (120) against the Eagles continued an inaccurate season in front of goal for Coolamon, who have booted 86.121 in total.
"We match up pretty well against both teams (MCUE and GGGM) I feel, but we haven't been able to impact the scoreboard the way we'd like," he said.
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