By Tara Murray
The Altona Gators still have plenty of work to do after a slow start to the Big V women’s division 1 season.
The Gators suffered successive two-point losses in the opening two rounds, with coach Randy Shanklin saying they hadn’t played anywhere near their best.
Despite this, they’ve had chances to win both games.
“We are just not in tune at the moment,” he said. “We’re not gelling at the moment.
“Just imagine if we played well, how much we would have won by.
“We have a few new players that are learning our system. We were a bit disrupted in the practice matches.
“At the end of the day we can give excuses, but they were better than us.”
Shanklin would have been more happy on Saturday night as the Gators opened their account against Melbourne University.
It was a convincing win, with the Gators setting up the 76-57 win with a 25-7 first quarter.
Tyla Paraha top scored with 21 points.
Shanklin said the league was stronger than last season, so they would have to be better to improve on last season when they were knocked out in the second week of finals.
He said they had a bit of work to get where they were last season, but had set some high expectations for the season.
“I think the expectations are high,” he said. “We’ve only had two games for the season, we’re not calling in the fire brigade just yet.
“They’re two two-point losses and there’s lots of good things to take out of them.
“We will get there, we have to keep on improving.”
One area the Gators have looked to improve is adding some extra depth.
Shanklin said they didn’t want to have to rely on the youth league players as much as last season.
“It’s not as disruptive,” he said of having players jump from side to side. “We just have to get the new players to catch up to how we want them to play and learn our style.”
Shanklin said they were working hard to break down some old habits at training to ensure that everyone was working on the same page.
