Despite the 29-15 score, Lavaka said Saturday’s game in Narromine was an “ugly” one.

“There was a lot of little mistakes,’ he said.

“We seem to play to the level of every team we play – when we play a good side, we lift to that level but when we play a weaker team we seem to drop to their level; it’s very upsetting as a coach.”

At one stage the score was levelled at 15-all before the Platypi picked up their game to win by 14 points.

“We tried to score too early instead of keeping the ball close to the forward every time,” Lavaka said. “We just tried too hard instead of playing simple footy.”

The forward pack, in particular Jarrod Hall, Andrew Hubbard and Graeme Hopkins, was strong this week, while Henry Willis played well from the back line and Tohi Nusipepa and Adrian Cole helped lift the game.

While Forbes was happy to take the win and bonus point this week, Lavaka said it was disappointing to hear some of the boys already talking about playing finals.

“We’re not there yet; we need to improve in all areas to play finals,” he said. 

“Some of our guys have never played finals footy before – it’s another level of football.

“If we can’t win these little games, the dream will not happen.

“Narromine are eighth and we are coming second – I wanted to prove to Narromine why we are coming second. It took us 70 minutes to show them; it was very frustrating.”