Tara Murray
The wins keep coming for the City West Falcons with their winning streak up to 10 in the Victorian Netball League championship.
It was another challenging night for the Falcons on Wednesday night, this time against the Hawks, who are pushing to stay in touch with the top four.
A dominant period in the third quarter from the Falcons would be the difference in the game with the Falcons winning, 70-61.
Lind said it was a pretty physical game.
“It was super hard one-on-one and it took us a while to again sort out our strategy,” she said.
“Once we did that we had 11 goal run in the third quarter which I thought was pretty good.
“We had that two goal buffer at the first and four at the half. We’re building slowly. We had a patch of maybe four or five errors, but it was really good that the team rallied around each other and just got back to business, that’s where we scored 11 straight.”
Lind said the biggest change in strategy was looking to go more one-on-one than a back defence.
She said that helped shut the route into Kaylia Stanton.
“Pretty much you’re struggling to beat her unless you’re a lot taller, which we’re not,” she said. “When you’re playing the Hawks they sit off the line and you’re pretty much redundant playing a wall.
“Sophie [Hanrahan] matched up on her [Stanton] pretty well once we had the one-on-one out the front to help.”
The other area they sorted out was their centre passes, with Maggie Lind taking the majority of then and Uneeq Palavi playing back a bit.
Jane Cook shot 56 goals for the Falcons, missing just three shots for the game.
Lind said she thought the attack end was really solid in patches.
“There were no superstars,” she said. “I like it when we don’t have a standout.
“I thought Cookie was solid again under the post. When the attack end goes and the ball speed is high, we’ll be hard to beat.
“I thought Uneeq was good in terms of valuing the ball. Her fitness is improving and she’s definitely making some inroads.”
For the under-23 side it was a tough night against the top of the table Hawks, losing 62-40.
Lind said it was a good first quarter when they had the scores level at 15-all but they fell away after that.
“I thought we gave them way too much space and gave it straight back to them,” she said. “Still a work in progress.”
The Falcons sit in fourth spot after 13 rounds.
The Falcons this week face the Boroondara Express.
The Express is the only team to beat the Falcons championship side back in round one, but one goal.
It will be a top of the table clash with the Express sitting two points clear on top, but it has played one more match than the Falcons.
