Just two weeks away from the opening round of the NSW Country Championships, Western Rams coach Cameron Greenhalgh knows his group still have work to do.
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The Rams opens squad took to the field at Young on Sunday in a trial fixture against Riverina Bulls and it was the latter who came away with a 26-18 victory.
Much was made about the talent the Western side possessed ahead of their first match as a team but Greenhalgh is confident the group has a lot of improvement left in them.
"It didn't really matter about the score, it was more about getting the little things right and blowing the cobwebs out," he said.
"Hopefully it did that because we weren't good by any means, we had a chat after it about what's expected.
"We were probably a little bit underdone compared to the other side but in saying that we were leading for most of the game.
"When you have 24 players to chop and change in key positions you couldn't quite get things flowing, we were just out of sorts and trying to do hard at times."
While he has represented Western before, Justin Toomey-White made his Rams return on Sunday in what was the first game in many months for most of the group.
It's the lack of football played between September 2022 and Sunday which doesn't have Greenhalgh too worried about the patchy performance.
"That's right exactly (they haven't played much footy), a lot of them haven't played together, it's a quality team but sometimes the boys are waiting for someone to do something," he said.
"We need to get that out of us across the next few training runs we have, we need to do a few things as a team and work on our defence.
"Our defensive efforts could be a little bit better because I know that we have plenty of attack there, we just couldn't quite get our hands on the ball enough."
The Western Rams will be in action next against Northern Tigers at Farrer's John Simpson Oval. Between now and then, Greenhalgh said the squad will get together a few more times in preparation for the knockout fixture.
"I think we were all a little bit flat and the boys realised it," he said.