Tallon Smith

The West Wyalong Mallee Men are looking to take the momentum from a strong first half performance against Darlington Point-Coleambally into their clash with the Yanco-Wamoon Hawks at Yanco on Sunday.

Despite falling to the Roosters 62-18 in the end, a strong opening stanza, featuring tries to emerging talents Cruze Loudon and Callan Blackstock has left coach Braiden Jones with reason to be optimistic about the remainder of the season.

Jones said that the first half of Sunday’s clash against the defending premiers was a good sign as the club continues its rebuild in 2025.

“The first half was a big positive for us, obviously going into the sheds at 22 to 12,” he said.

“In the end, we just ran out of legs, we had 12 on the field again at one stage, Logan Collins went off.

“It was another tough day at the office in the end.”

With the Mallee Men picking up a second win of the season just three weeks ago against Leeton, the West Wyalong side is within reach of Lakes, Yanco and Hay in a four-way scrap to avoid the dreaded wooden spoon.

Jones said that he is looking to bring the momentum from the first half of the DPC clash into the game against the Hawks, with potential changes to the line-up allowing the side’s youngsters to be given a chance to play in key positions on the cards. 

“There were a lot of positives out of the first half last week and I want to take that back into this week,” he said.

“I possibly might give the young boys a bit more of a run in some different positions, into the middle, play a bit of halves, a bit of hooker, basically just try and improve their game a bit, give them a bit of confidence coming up.”

As for the morale of the group, Jones said that the players are energised and ready to tackle one of the surprise packets of the competition on Sunday.

“Morale is still very high,” he said.

“It’s good to see a few of the older boys get around the younger boys because the younger boys love it, they turn up every week, every training run.

“Obviously, if they [the team] didn’t want to play, they wouldn’t turn up.”

The match against the Hawks kicks off at 2:30pm at the Yanco Sportsground on Sunday, following the League Tag fixture between the Mallee Chicks and the Hawks.