Tara Murray
City West Falcons overcame a sloppy start to get a good win against the North East Blaze in the Victorian Netball League championship division.
The Blaze entered the match undefeated, but proved no match for the Falcons, who put up a really strong defensive game in the 67-47 win.
Falcons coach Marg Lind said they were pretty happy with the performance after they settled.
“It was a good win,” she said.
“We took a while to get going. We were sloppy in the first quarter and then hit our straps.
“We had been making too many errors in the attack end, taking too many risks. We need to settle down a bit and be more disciplined with the feed.
“They were massive risks we were taking under pressure, we should be consolidating at the start of the game.”
The Falcons goalers shared the load around with Jane Cook shooting 26 goals, Uneeq Palavi shot 25 and Maddy Gray 16 goals.
Lind kept a pretty solid midcourt combination throughout the match, with them settling after the first quarter.
She again made changes at both ends, to mix and match with Blaze.
Defenders Zoe Davies and Sienna Allen were the standouts
“Zoe was seeing them like watermelons,” she said. “She had like 20 intercepts and played out of her skin.
“As a team we normally aim for 16, so we don’t know what was going on.
“Sienna was playing her former club. It can go one of two ways and it went the right way for us. She’s starting to show some good signs of improvement.”
The win moves the Falcons up to second spot at the Easter break. Lind said it was a bit of a mental relief being in the top four at this point of the season.
“Much better than last year,” she said. “It shows our match play preparation was better.”
The Falcons’ under-19s remain undefeated with a come from behind win, with the Blaze also entering the match undefeated.
The division 1 side came back 14 goals down to one goal in the final minute, before losing by two goals.
Lind said the group was still finding their feet.
The competition now doesn’t return to April 21 due to Easter and the under-17 and under-19 national championships.
Several Falcons players will be in action during those championships.
Mikaela Minns, Charli Nicol, Teal Hocking and Charlotte Sexton are all in the under-19 team, while Mackenzie O’Dwyer and Elisa Butterworth-Gonebale are in the under-17 team,
Lind said most of those girls had come through the pathway at the Altona association which was positive for what the program was doing.
