With around 10 minutes remaining, the score was just 3-2, but two late goals for the Demon Knights sealed the result.

"Obviously in a knockout you might as well lose by 10 goals compare to one goal," Moree Services FC coach Darrel Smith said.

"We pushed forward to try and get that equalising goal and they got two breakaways in the final 10 minutes."

It took some time for Moree to settle into the game, and the Demon Knights scored their opening goal inside the first five minutes, but Moree were able to work their way back into it, with new recruit Bailey Bourke making it 1-1.

"The first half we did struggle a bit, we've only had one trial game this year, they played at a pretty high tempo," Smith said.

"It took us a little while to regroup [after the Demon Knights goal], but after another five minutes we got an equaliser to make it 1-1."

Moree's defence stepped up numerous times in the first half to repel the Demon Knights attack, but they conceded a goal just before half time to go into the break down 2-1.

They came out stronger after the break and looked the better side for the first 20 minutes of the second half.

"At half time we talked about making a few changes in our defence and that really worked well in the second half," Smith said.

"They didn't have much room. They had very limited opportunities for the first half an hour."

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A breakdown in Moree's defence allowed Demon Knights to extend their lead to 3-1 but Moree were again able to hit back and reduce the deficit to just one goal.

Moree had a number of scoring opportunities to equalise over the next 15 minutes but just couldn't get the ball in the back of the net.

In the final 10 minutes, they pushed more numbers forward to try and get that important third goal, but as a result Demon Knights were able to make a couple of breakaways and slot two late goals.

Smith was thrilled with the team's performance, saying the scoreline did not indicate how close the game was.

"We probably had about five players who hadn't played for our club before and playing last year's last year's grand finalists [in the Northern Inland Premier League], it was a pretty good result," he said. 

"Some really good positives to come out of it.

"It took us a while to get into the pace but once we got used to that we played really well, created a lot of opportunities to score but just couldn't put it in."

Smith pointed out Bourke as one of the standout performers on the day but said the entire team played extremely well.

"Bailey, he had a lot of opportunities up front, he's got a bit of pace and that'll be handy for the rest of the season," he said.

"The rest of our players were really solid, once we got our structure set properly, they didn't bother us a lot until we pushed forward at the end of the game."