The City West Falcons are now completely focused on finals after going through the regular Victorian Netball League season undefeated.
Having been the team to beat since round one when they jumped out of the blocks, the Falcons have continued to build throughout the season.
On Wednesday night they finished the regular season with another big win, this time against the Peninsula Waves.
The Falcons led 20-10 at quarter time and doubled that margin by half time.
It was much the same in the second half as the Falcons came away with an 82-42 win.
Falcons coach Marg Lind was again pretty happy with their performance.
“Good win and the ability to rest a few players, which was good,” she said. “We’ve hopefully still got a month to go.
“It’s not like the old final series, bit of a longer journey so we were mindful of that.
“We bought Vanessa [Augustini] in as we wanted to rest Maggie [Lind] a bit and we wanted to have a bit of variation through the mids, it was good, it worked well.”
Lind said while they were able to rotate players through they were still able to keep a high scoring rate.
She said they had continued to build that connection with a smaller shooting circle, in case they needed it through finals.
“The smalls worked well today [Wednesday] in the circle,” she said. “Each time they’ve been together we’ve set some higher targets for them and they achieved that.
“A bit more consistency and they realise that a completely different game if Cookie [Jane Cook] is not on.
“Should that be required at any point, it has improved.”
Cook finished with 54 goals for the season. She finished with a new season high of 1078 to claim another hot shot award.
Lind said she thought Maddie Romios had a good game in attack, shooting 17 goals.
The 23 and under side lost by one goal to the Waves, 55-54.
Lind said they wasted too much ball and weren’t strong enough on the take. She said it was a good comeback to fight it out.
Goaler Lani Fauonuku missed the game due to Australian camp duties.
Both teams had already qualified for finals.
The championship side finished on top and will face Boroondara Express and have a double chance.
The two sides have played off in the last two grand finals.
“There’s four weeks to go, hopefully we’re there at the end of the four,” Lind said. “You just can’t lose, you have to keep winning.
“Simple as that, I know we could lose one and still be in the race. I think you just have to go and sail up and have a red hot crack.”
The 23 and under side faces the Hawks in an elimination final.
Lind said they would be tough especially having not beaten them this season.
