The City West Falcons showed some improvement on Wednesday night, but there’s still a way to go for the Victorian Netball League championship side.
The Falcons got their second win of the season against the Bendigo Strikers, 70-52.
Falcons coach Marg Lind said it was a good performance.
“It was a pretty good win,” she said. “There is still a lot to work on.
“We had a really good start and we were able to build slowly through the game.
“It was a strong game.”
The Falcons made the most of the rotating substitution role, making plenty of changes throughout the game.
Lind said they were keen to see all the different combinations in action. All 13 players had at least 15 minutes of court time.
Lind said she was happy with what she saw with some of the combinations.
“We wanted to give players as much touch as possible,” she said. “I think Uneeq [Palavi] and Jane [Cook] and going well with Uneeq at goal attack.
“Shimmy [Shimona Jok] showed a lot, both are getting better and better.”
“We saw Lucia [Fauonuku] and Mel [Oloamanu] in defence together for the first time in a long time. They played state netball together.
“They also showed a bit, there’s good signs.”
Lind said it was a really good team performance and didn’t single out any standouts but was impressed with how Sussu Liai is fitting into the side.
She said they needed to keep making improvements to stay with the top teams.
“There’s still a lot of improvement,” she said. “The team is still fairly new and there’s more improvement than other years.
“There’s a lot of danger games moving forward.”
The Falcons under-23 side also got its second win of the season, also beating the Strikers, 53-41
Lind said after seeing the first few rounds they were one of the younger teams in the competition.
“We’ve gone with a lot of under-19s and our oldest is 21,” she said. “That gives us a bit to play with going forward if nothing changes.
“We will be tough this year though.”
The Falcons championship side has a bye this week, while the under-23s play Gippsland.
Lind said she would look to use the week to freshen up the championship players with a lot of netball to come in the following weeks.
Meanwhile, the race of the Mavericks 10th spot is still open.
The Mavericks have locked in South African shooter Rolene Streutker as a training partner alongside Falcons pair Jok and Palavi.
Tara Murray
