TODAY’S round 11 clash at George Gordon Oval is tipped to be a battle between the most consistent and most challenged sides, as unbeaten Wentworth take on third-placed Ouyen United.
Ouyen United co-coach Kyra Nathan said Ouyen United had experienced a tough opening to the season, consistently unable to cement a starting seven due to injuries, sicknesses and player unavailability.
She said the team knew today’s match would be a challenge because Wentworth were known for their relentlessness and slick play.
“We still have players coming back from injury and we are still not completely settled on a side, which is hard,” she said.
“It has been pretty tough and new because we haven’t dealt with this before. We haven’t had a week when everyone is available.”
Nathan said despite the side not having a settled team, the players had shown great improvement and competed well over the last few weeks.
“We had a really good hit-out against Mildura and I thought that all the players that played that game and will play this game did a really excellent job,” she said.
“It is just combinations for us and trying to make sure we get as much game time in those girls as we can and once we get that going, things will settle down and we will start to play better as a team.
“In round 2 we had two significant players out, one of those out for the season, but I think the girls that have come in have done a really good job and they are getting better and better every week.”
Despite a tough start to the season, the Kangas have managed to remain highly competitive, sitting in third spot, only seeing defeat from first-placed Wentworth and second-placed Mildura.
With Ouyen United finishing the shortened 2021 season in second, Nathan said it was great that the team could still achieve a high position in 2022, regardless of the interruptions.
“I think sometimes we have got pretty high standards of ourselves, and I think that comes from our season in 2019 with both A grade and B grade winning premiership, so those standards are pretty still entrenched in our minds,” she said.
“It is a great achievement to be able to still be in the top 4 even with the hits we have had in our senior grades in terms of numbers and consistency.”
When the two teams first clashed in round 2, Ouyen United lost to Wentworth by 15 goals, the lowest margin of any Wentworth game this season.
Nathan said she hoped today would be a “tightly challenged” game, that would provide the team with an indication of where they are at.
“I think the exciting part for us is that it will show us where we are at and what we need to improve on to make sure we are hitting our straps, come finals,” she said.
“The second round is my favourite cause you start to work out the teams from the first round and what their strengths are and their weaknesses and you try to exploit their weaknesses a bit. Hopefully we can do a little bit of that.”
