THE experience of the Swan Hill A Grade netballers has again come to the fore, earning a grand final spot with a solid five-goal win over the Mallee Eagles.
In hot, sunny conditions for Saturday’s preliminary final at Tooleybuc, the nerves from both sides were evident, each missing crucial scoring opportunities in the opening minutes.
But after settling, it was a fairly evenly matched contest until the third quarter.
While the Swans were ahead by 10 goals at three-quarter-time, the Eagles’ come-from-behind effort against Woorinen the previous week indicated the game wasn’t over.
However, the Eagles, try as they might, just couldn’t come back from this deficit, only able to peg the scoreline back to within five goals.
Swans coach Madeleine Nalder, who instructed her team from the sideline instead of taking to the court this week, told The Guardian it was “a relief” to win and get the opportunity to play in another grand final – something Swan Hill’s A Grade has done in nearly half the seasons of the past two decades.
“I feel like it really was a team effort,” Nalder said.
“I said to the girls that it takes a village, and I asked them all to perform and I feel like everyone did.”
With the Swans defenders double-teaming Kellie Walker, that left most of the Eagles’ shooting to goal attack Megan Thorneycroft.
While she was very accurate at the post, it meant she, along with her feeders, were working extra hard to make up for Walker being blocked.
It was a different story in the Swans ring, however, with Zoe Morris and Ingrid Condely demonstrating the best of their shooting connection.
Eagles coach Meg Allen said that while she was “obviously gutted” at the final result, she was really proud of her team for getting to this point, particularly considering they only just scraped into the top five.
“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, and you can ask whether we should have changed here or changed there, but we did what we did and I think it did work at the time – you sort of never know if you could have changed it,” she said.
The Swans will now take on minor premiers Lake Boga for the premiership in this weekend’s grand final.
Having lost to them just a week ago in the semi finals, the Swans will be hoping the results fall in their favour when it really counts.
“At training we will take the learnings that we had from last week against Lake Boga and hopefully put some of those into play in the grand final,” Nalder said.
FINAL WHISTLE
Swan Hill 59
Mallee Eagles 54
