From the starting whistle the game was hard-fought, both teams seemed evenly matched, so players had to work for every possession.

Tigers drew first blood, scoring early, but Monaro gave a quick reply thanks to a quick cross and goal from Mark Shields, assisted by Matt Menser.

Daniel Linstead caught the attention of the umpires early, receiving a yellow card and sent off with a red soon after.

Cooma made the most of the undermanned Panthers and scored two goals within a minute to lead 3 to 1 at halftime.

"When Daniel was sent off it definitely changed the shape of the game," Lopera said.

"We weren't happy with the goals we had let through, but we still thought we were in it."

But the Panthers did not come out with the positivity and optimism that they had spoken about in the changerooms, Lopera said.

"The second half was very poor, the goals we conceeded were unacceptable," he said.

"We dropped our heads and we just weren't up to it- we dropped our bundle.

Lopera's words were a brutal, but honest representation of the second half- too many opportunities missed, too many goals easily conceded and a 6 to 1 final score in favour of the visitors.

"All of the coaching staff is pretty upset with the performance," Lopera said.

"We're trying to change the perception of the Monaro Panthers as an 'easy-beat', so we have to be competitive in each and every game.

"We still created chances and played some good footy, but when we conceded a goal we dropped mentally and dropped another goal.

"Skills-wise it's not an issue- we know we can compete technically with all of the teams in the comp and we have great fitness, it's just mentally."

Backman Michael Pochi made his premier league debut and Lopera said he performed well considering the early loss of his defensive partner, Linstead.

Chris Ruiz also performed well, but Lopera is looking towards his old heads to steady the ship for the remainder of the season.

"We're got some experienced players now who have won championships, so hopefully they can bring that experience for us.

"But I'm confident with our players- we've also got a number of talented young guys in under 20s that we'll be keen to use when we need."

Monaro have a bye next round and return on May 3 to tackle Tuggeranong at Kambah and Lopera is confident the boys will use last week's loss to turn their game around.

"Hopefully we'll use the loss as a learning curve- I'm more than confident we can bag the three points for next game," he said.