GEORGIA Chase is excited to be leading South Mildura into a new era.
The 22-year-old Bulldogs product has been named the club’s new A Grade netball coach for 2022, taking the reins from South netball “royalty” Loretta Thompson.
A talented player from a young age, Chase has been a member of both the Mildura netball academy and Northern Zone academy and is taking on a new challenge.
The goal defender admitted it might be a rebuilding phase, having finishing seventh in the interrupted 2021 after losing some key players, however the club would be looking to recruit, as well as blooding a number of young players from its junior production line.
“We’ve got a few juniors coming up so we’ll give them a run and see who else we can get across to South, whether it be some older players, but probably most of the younger ones (will play) and maybe have a bit more of a rebuild year,” she said.
“With the training they should be right, it’s just that game experience they need so I’m happy to give them a go and provide whatever training they need, and help all of us to work on our fitness.
“We hope to improve all over the court but if we can build a bit more structure in our attacking end it would be great.
“We lost our main shooter in Demi Toms, so we’re still trying to rebuild from that, and we’ve obviously lost Demalza Henry as well.
“I’m a defender with Mikaela Saunders, and we’d never played together before and we are quite similar but I think we’ve built as we’ve gone on. We also have Maddy (Toms) who’s a great leader in mid-court.”
Chase said she had big shoes to fill in taking over from Thompson.
“Loretta has done an awesome job for the last however many years she’d done it. She’s just royalty (at South),” she said.
Chase, who played a season of football in 2016, said the entire club was looking forward to a new start at Mildura Sporting Precinct, although it is unlikely the netball courts will be ready for the start of the 2022 Sunraysia Football and Netball League campaign.
“We’ve been told maybe half-way through next year (they’ll be ready) so we have our fingers crossed for May,” she said.
“It is a new beginning, we hope that can spark a bit of interest for people to come out and join the club both on the netball and side of things.”
