FROM winless and at the bottom of the ladder, to now fourth-placed finals contenders, Ouyen United have pulled the fastest 180-degree turn of this SFNL A Grade netball season.
The Kangas’ campaign started with four losses and one draw.
It wasn’t until round seven that last year’s runners-up secured their first win and began their climb from ninth to fourth, which took just four weeks.
The Kangas now have five wins, five losses and a draw, and are only game behind South Mildura in third.
Coach Kyra Nathan said the team had been working on new combinations at the start of the year, which affected their performance.
They had lost a number of players from last season, including co-coach Casey Crothers and shooter Tayla Willsmore, who suffered an ACL injury before the grand final.
“(We were) just trying to play around with different combinations and different people,” Nathan said.
“We are not great starters and I always say you don’t win premierships from the first few games.”
Nathan said the unavailability of other key players in the first few rounds also made it hard for the team to come together.
“We had Tsharni Burns out, Cat Brown out,” she said.
“You take one pretty vital person out and it really does hurt you.”
Nathan said the team was really starting to come together with some new players rising to the challenge.
Brown, a star defender last year, made the shift into shooting and has been joined by the very young but talented Maggie Smith, aged 14.
“We have young Maggie Smith who we have put in in the team in the last couple of weeks and she is giving us a really good target, which we are used to,” Nathan said.
“She is very young but she is very, very tall – she is definitely over six-foot tall I’d say.
“I think she is definitely improving every week and … with Cat Brown in the goals this year, she talks to her and supports her in that position.”
Nathan said it was great the team were working well together, but knew there were still improvements to be made.
However, coming up against second-placed Mildura this weekend, she believed the team was ready for the challenge.
“We are expecting a tough game,” she said.
“We know they have got some really great talent in their attack line, their midcourt and defence.”
Nathan said the Kangas’ defence would match well with Mildura’s shooters and make them work hard to score their normally high number of goals.
“We are going to have to be on our game and train well and hopefully we are close to them and we can get over the line,” she said.
Top team Wentworth will head to Quandong Park to play bottom-of-the-ladder Red Cliffs, South Mildura will play sixth-placed Merbein at Mildura Sporting Precinct and fifth-placed Irymple will play eighth-placed Robinvale Euston at John James Oval.
Imperials have the bye.
