A dominant first half from City West was enough for the Falcons to hold on for a five-goal win against Southern Saints in the Victorian Netball League.
With Kath Knott taking control in the goal area, City West opened up a 13-goal lead at half-time last Wednesday.
Knott scored 17 goals from 18 attempts to guide her side to a commanding position.
However, with the Falcons playing three games in one week, City West coach Marg Lind went into player management mode.
Knott sat out the second half, which allowed the Saints to make a late run.
But it wasn’t enough to conquer the Falcons, who held on for a 51-46 win.
Despite the victory, Lind was disappointed with her side’s inability to adapt to positional changes by the Saints.
“We allowed them to put two running goalers on us, which was a good test,” she said.
“At the end of the game I said to the defenders, there you go, there’s a sign.
“We have probably been working against a taller goaler every week and then they come and put two smalls on and it was just a bit of a shock to the system.
“We didn’t think hard enough. We didn’t problem-solve when we were under pressure in the second half.”
The result continued City West’s remarkable run through the VNL competition.
The undefeated Falcons are on top of the ladder with a perfect 12-0 record.
Last week was only the second time this season that the Falcons’ winning margin was kept to single digits.
With a busy schedule ahead, Lind said her team wouldn’t train throughout the week in an effort to stay fresh.
“We’ve put in some hard yards in the past few weeks knowing we can’t really afford to train [this week],” she said.
“There’s also ANL [Australian Netball League] training that most of ours are involved in, and a lot of them still have school netball as well.
“We just can’t add our own training on top of that workload.”
The Falcons’ next match is against the Geelong Cougars on Wednesday.
