A large crowd gathered to celebrate the long-awaited return of football.

Despite having not played a competitive match in 560 days, the Warriors immediately found their rhythm as they surged to a 109-32 victory.

The Warriors' Blair Hart of the football department said he was pleased with the team's performance.

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"Everything went to plan," he said.

"We set up really well behind the ball and turned defence into attack quite well."

Early goals from Cody Driscoll, Cameron Kimber, and Jay Moody saw the Warriors take an early 24-0 lead.

However, when Ararat did score through Flynn Jamieson, the momentum briefly shifted.

A second goal from Jamieson and one from Tom Mills meant early in the second quarter Ararat had fought back to within five points of the Warriors.

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Yet the Warriors soon quashed Ararat's resistance, as they proceeded to score 84-points without answer.

Hart said the performance of the team's less experienced players had been particularly encouraging.

"We were pretty solid all-round, a few of the young ones we were impressed with: Tom Walker played a good game, and Jesse Barber was very solid in the backline," he said.

"We know what our top-line players give, it's that next level which is stepping up, which is what we want."

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Hart said despite the resounding victory, there was still room for improvement.

"Our goalkicking could probably be better," he said.

"We kicked 15 (goals), 19 (points), so if we kicked straighter we kicked a bit better we could have had 25 goals. So that's one thing we'll probably work on."

The Reserve's game followed a similar pattern.

While Ararat showed glimpses of their quality, the Warriors controlled the game as they eased to a 72-19 victory.

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