Tara Murray
It was a first up loss for the City West Falcons in the Victorian Netball League championship division on Wednesday night.
The typically slow starting Falcons were on show against the Boroondara Express on night one, having to chase for much of the game.
The Falcons had a shot on the siren to draw the game, but missed, with the Falcons losing 58-57.
Falcons coach Marg Lind admitted that they still have a lot of work to do.
“We still have a bit of work to do,” he said. “We threw some combinations around and explored a few different ideas.
“The defence end needs some more work. We were seven goals down and pretty much chased from there.
“We went a bit radical with our combinations. We were a bit wasteful and Boroondara was solid throughout the night.
“We were playing the team we played in the final last year and they wanted a bit of revenge.
Lind said while the offensive end missed Maddy Gray, who is currently missing due to pregnancy, they performed pretty well.
She said Jane Cook was outstanding in goal shooter despite missing the shot to tie the game.
Defensively she said they would work on a few things.
“Lucia [Fauonuku] was out as well,” Lind said. “Defensively it was a pretty new line up.
“Mel [Oloamanu], Sophie [Hanrahan] and Sussu [Liai] are playing together for the first time. We’ll need a few weeks to get up to speed.”
The Falcons under-23 side also battled early before finding the right combinations towards the end to come away with a 48-46 win.
Lind said they played around with things in that division as well.
Looking at results across the board, Lind said the season is shaping up as an interesting one.
“It will be an up and down VNL season with some interesting results all ready,” she said.
“It’s the first round and we are typically pretty ordinary.
“The last quarter we gained some momentum and some lessons were learned.”
The Falcons face the Hawks in round two. The Hawks beat Melbourne University on Wednesday night.
Lind said it would be a big challenge with the Hawks on fire early and the Falcons working to peak later in the season.
The Falcons under-19 teams will get their season underway this week with the start of the new under-19 competition, which has been partly launched by the Altona Netball Association.
The Falcons will have two teams in that competition.
