Tara Murray
A slow start proved costly for the City West Falcons in the opening round of the Victorian Netball League Championship division.
The Falcons trailed by as much as seven early on, before working their way into the game in the second half.
The Blaze though was able to do enough to secure the 64-60 win. It was the Falcons first loss since the 2019 season.
Falcons coach Marg Lind said the team struggled early on with a few nerves as they tried new combinations.
“We lost after giving them a pretty good start,” she said.
“Maggie [Lind] is a big loss in terms of leadership. It will take a few weeks to find our voice.
“There were a number of players playing in different positions that didn’t settle early enough.”
The Falcons weren’t helped when Lucia Fauonuku, who has stepped up into the championship division side, did her ankle in the first three minutes of the game.
It meant the Falcons mid court combinations were thrown out, with their defenders needing to help fill the void.
Lind said they made too many errors, which were always going to hurt against a side like Blaze.
She said goal shooter Jane Cook was solid in the performance while Montana Holmes had a good second half.
Uneeq Palavi played her first game back with the Falcons, with Lind saying she will take some time to adjust to playing goal attack.
Lind said they will take some positives out of the result and the second half performance.
“Reshuffling the deck was not ideal in the first round,” she said.
“It was a bit frenetic, the girls just needed to settle down and trust the line up.
“We had a very high scoring game, so the attacking end showed it had the ability there, but we had to keep shifting the defensive end.”
The Falcons division 1 side had a similar result to the championship division, a poor start and spending the rest of the game chasing.
The under-19 came away with the win after a tight contest early on.
It doesn’t get any easier for the Falcons who face the Geelong Cougars this week.
“It’s a tough draw for us,” Lind said. “It’s not a great time for us trying to settle a new line up.
“We can’t rebuild in two weeks. We expected to be there, but we didn’t expect it to happen overnight.”
