Tara Murray
The incredible legacy of the City West Falcons continues to grow with the club claiming its sixth Victorian Netball League Championship title.
Already the most successful club in the competition’s history, the Falcons have now won as many top grade premierships as the other teams combined.
Throw in another three grand final appearances, they’ve made the final game of the season nine out of the 12 seasons.
On Wednesday night, it was all about the Falcons.
They started by winning the under-19 premiership comfortably, before stepping up for the championship grand final against the Geelong Cougars.
After playing the best ever VNL game in the semi finals according to Falcons coach Marg Lind, it was another thriller in the grand final.
The Falcons had to come from behind, to get the 49-47 win.
Having been part of the competition since day one, Lind has seen a lot of things on the court.
But after the two premierships, she was left speechless about what they had achieved. It exceeded all their expectations heading into the season.
“What a night,” she said. “I have no idea how we did that.
“I thought they would either blow us out of the water or just a nail biter. Credit to Geelong they never gave up.
“It feels amazing. We work hard. We come together as a group a few times a week and we made that big commitment which is hard in the middle of winter.
“It’s a big team effort, a big family association.”
Lind said early in the piece they didn’t value the ball enough with a lot of physical pressure from both teams.
She said both teams were stilted in getting rid of the ball.
“It was the team that could turn over the ball the most and capitalise,” she said. “We weren’t able to do that for the first three quarters, that crowd brought us home.
With the side down at half time, the Falcons looked to make some changes.
The Uneeq Palavi and Maddie Gray combination in goals which worked so well in the first final, was one of the changes they made.
Lind said while Jane Cook was shooting well, they thought bringing on Palavi could get the crowd involved.
It did exactly that with it hard to hear anything for most of the second half.
“We spoke to Uneeq about what she was afraid of, it was really her first final at VNL level in champ,” Lind said.
“She said I don’t know. I said if you’re going to be like that we’re going to lose anyhow, just relax, have a bit of fun, get a bit involved and that certainly helped her.”
Lind said Montana Holmes, who was also playing in her first VNL grand final, also settled in the second half.
Soli Ropati, who spent a few minutes at centre in the first half moved into wing defence after half time.
“She has not been with us for a little bit we thought she had a fractured wrist,” Lind said. “It wasn’t fractured.
“That experience really counted. In saying that Lucia [Fauonuku] played her role, I think the whole team played their role tonight. I thought the subs worked really well, they took a few minutes to get into it but I think all the subs were effective.”
After getting the scores back to level, the Falcons conceded late goals in the third quarter, with the margin back out to five at last break.
Lind admits to going ballistic at the last break, knowing the work they had done to get back into the game.
She shouldn’t have worried with the side stepping up to secure the win.
“I think in the last we kept our heads,” she aid.
“We stepped up Zoe [Davies] had really good last quarter. Mel [Oloamanu] had a good last quarter, Mon pulled those two offensive contacts.
“And we got a bit more organised on the line on our centre pass… We had a couple of key focus points in the last and paid off.”
Zoe Davies was named best on court. She received the same award in the 2018 championship win as well.
Lind said Davies performance was heroic, especially after an ankle injury in the last quarter.
She said the whole playing group had done a massive amount of work to get them where they were.
Lind was also full of praise for their supporters.
“Someone said it was like we had eight players on the court, I think it was more like we had 10 players actually.”
