A FULL court, and a near full four-quarter performance from Wentworth’s A Grade netballers clipped the wings of the injury affected Irymple on George Gordon Oval’s main court at Dareton on Saturday in a 72 to 31 final result.
With a shortened bench, the Swallows were able to match the Roos for a few minutes at the start of the first and third, as well as spirited showing in the final term, but the home side’s cohesiveness and dialled in teamwork was too much to overcome.
As Wenty were coming off Easter and a bye, playing coach and towering shooter Amanda Edwards, who has 49 majors for the game, said it was good to get back out on court.
“I’ve been really happy with our starts so far,” she said.
“We’ve hard really great starts and full credit to the girls coming in hard off the bat which in nice.
“All the girls worked super hard and I’m lucky I’ve got my whole nine and they’re all capable.
“There were patches during the game, moments where we were all good, and there’s things we could definitely work on, but today’s effort, I’m really happy with how it went.
Edwards said her squad didn’t take their foot off the gas in the last, rather took the opportunity to try some new player roles under match conditions.
“We were just trying to settle combinations and lots of changes, and work into those positions when we did make the changes,” she said.
“It was a bit warm out there and we’d had a bye and Easter off as well, so probably a bit of a rest and mind shift.”
Although the Swallows were able to match their hosts goal for goal at times, but the end of the first quarter the score was 16 to 7, and at the half Wentworth had extended to 39 to 13.
A sustained gusty wind blowing in from the north made shooting from range unpredictable, meaning the Roos height under the ring via Edwards, and body strength within the attacking arch from Lola McInerney and Elizabeth Rowe gave them an advantage.
At the other end, Natalie Vercher Courtney Wakefield and put in a wealth of work, forcing shooter and playing coach Shelby Trigg, as well as Tarlia Couzner and Samantha Garraway at goal attack to scrap for every possession.
After the game Trigg paid full credit to the hosts and said there were a lot of takeaways for the Swallows from the loss.
“They’re a really good team and been together for quite a few consecutive years,” she said.
“It feels like we’re just beginning, which isn’t ideal starting fresh, but full credit to them, they are able to build bigger, better every year.
“We put up a reasonable fight, we know what we need to work on now. Hopefully round two against Wenty we can give it a better crack.”
Despite the final scoreline, Trigg said there were several positive takeaways from the match, including a 14 to 11 last quarter in favour of the hosts.
“The main thing for the second half was just to try and run it out,” she said. “Scrap the scoreboard and start a fresh.
“If we want to be actual finals contenders we need to show a half of netball that is hopeful before we can go all the way.
“The girls were able to come back out in that second half and put up a fight.”
Wentworth are still undefeated for season 2025 and top the table, while Irymple sits at two and one and find themselves in fourth place.
