The Magpies head to Moree for what second-rower Nick Lyons reckons will be “one of the hardest games we’ve played so far”.

“They’ve got a pretty physical team,” Lyons said.

They’re also third and could, with Narrabri and Pirates matching up, jump into second.

It is the Magpies’ longest, and arguably toughest, road trip but they will take heart and confidence from how they went against the Blue Boars earlier in the season.

They held them scoreless in the second half.

Lyons was adjudged the Magpies’ best in their last- ditch win over Barraba last Saturday picking up the zone three best and fairest points.

Much to his surprise. Probably not to those around the club, with Lyons consistently among the Magpies’ best.

He said it was tough – not just because of the conditions.

“The Barraba boys really played very hard,” Lyons said.

“They’re strong fellas.”

The Rams were arguably on top for probably 60 minutes of the game.

“We probably weren’t really talking as well as we should have been in the first 60 minutes,” he said.

That said, he didn’t really feel there was a specific turning point.

It was more something they built up to.

“A few fresh legs on the field helped there,” he said.

Co-coach Mark Daley noted as much too, the injection of co-captain Mitch Wheaton  particularly, sparking them to life a bit.

“Obviously his leadership helped,” Daley said.

He had no doubt Blake Etheridge’s sin-binning with just over 11 to go was a factor.

They also enjoyed a bit more possession and were able to put the Rams’ defence under a bit more strain.

Daley gave a mixed report card but couldn’t question their character after they came back from a 10-point deficit.

“In bits and pieces I thought we played quite well,” Daley said. “Other aspects we didn’t.”

“We probably tried to push it a bit.”

It was something they spoke about at half-time.

“The ball was a bit hard to keep under control,” Lyons said.

“We just talked about trying to keep it a bit tighter rather than playing an expansive style.”

They had been hoping to play an expansive game but the conditions didn’t really allow for that.

One of the areas Daley was impressed with was their defence.

There wasn’t much they could have done about Luke Smith’s try in the first half. It was spectacular but lucky.

Ben Withers’ try to take the Rams out to 15-5 was a bit of a bad read.

“Other than that the defence was great,” he said.

He was also impressed with the work of the backrow.

“Tom Anderson was amazing, so was Jimmy (Bracken) and Jack Barker,” he said.

And despite the conditions they showed a bit more deviation to their attack.

“We started to shift the play and play a few switches rather than running straight back into the ruck,” Daley said.

In other games tomorrow, the Rams host Walcha, Scone is at home to Gunnedah and Quirindi travel  to Inverell.