Macedon (19) V Woodend (50)
Team List:
Unavailable
We went into the Woodend Game with a clear focus. To play smart possession netball and to incorporate angles into our attacking movement.
We did this well for the first part of the game. We shot accurately, rebounded any missed shots and led the game 5-3. Disappointingly that is where the good work stopped. We began to turn over significant amounts of ball through defensive transitions, despite practising this at training last week. Normally we rely on defensive pressure to close the gap when turnovers come into our game, however, with only one intercept and Woodend missing only two of their 17 attempts, opportunities were slim.
Maddy came on into goal attack to increase movement in our attack end and lift the volume of goals we were putting up. Whilst Maddy shot at 100% we only put up five goals for this quarter. Not enough to be competitive as Woodend shot another nine goals and only missed two. Bella came alive in defence with three intercepts. However, with the team having 10 turnovers, any defensive efforts were futile.
The third quarter, was where we fell apart. We needed to shut down their attacking end. Woodend’s clinical game plan and systems were very predictable, and despite us knowing exactly where they were going to lead, we could not shut them down. Some pretty radical positional changes were made this quarter in an attempt to slow down their scoring. Bella and Georgia really disrupted their goal attack and goal shooter.
Bella cleaned up with another 4 intercepts and Georgia kept her goal attack to only 6 goals, when she had previously shot an average of 10 in each quarter. Although with another 10 turnovers in this quarter, all our hard work to gain position was lost.
Everyone from GD-WA had multiple turnovers, which really dried up ball into our goalers. We needed to transition the ball like practised on Thursday instead of running away from the play and expecting someone else to step up and attack. We lost this quarter 1-14.
In the fourth quarter we redeemed ourselves. We had the five turnovers and our transitions down the court steadied. Matilda was instrumental in the attack with her calm presence and safe hands. Demi came back onto the court and played a possession game, not forcing a pass, and using a reset on the transverse line if options were slim. This meant we were able to work the ball into the goal circle where Maddy and Matilda put up 11 attempts. Although we didn’t have many defensive recoveries this quarter we kept Woodend to just 11 goals. This was on par with our second quarter, going down by 4 goals.
We are back to basics this week, looking at a lot of scenarios. We will be practising what to do when we feel leads have dried up. In order to maintain position instead of turning over ball. Woodend were a very strong team but unfortunately, we didn’t play to our full potential.
Best on court goes to Bella Klaaysen
