STATISTICALLY, it wasn’t the best of days at the office for Sunraysia Football Netball League A Grade benchmarks Wentworth on Saturday at the Mildura Sporting Precinct.
They were held to their lowest score, recorded their equal smallest margin of victory and shooting star Amanda Edwards was 17 goals shy of her season average.
However, when put into context, it was still a pretty productive day’s work as the undefeated Roos dismantled another opponent with ruthless efficiency.
The weekend’s victim was South Mildura in a 66 to 27 result, and Edward’s lowly tally of 33 could be attributed to a couple of spells on the bench to get a different perspective of the game.
“I just wanted to look and see what we were doing from the sideline,” said Edwards, who had played basically every minute of every game so far this year.
“It’s definitely different looking at the game from there than when you are out on court, but the girls did really good.
“Everyone came on and played their roles, so why not?”
The Roos got off to an uncharacteristically sluggish start and only led 13-10 at the first break but that changed rather abruptly in the second quarter and the scoreline read a more familiar 37-14 at half-time.
“We started a bit slow today, but we were able to turn that around quite quickly once we set up the second quarter,” Edwards said.
“Once we were able to make a few little changes we were able to correct some things and push on and that was nice.”
While the offence was, by Wenty standards, quiet, the defence was even more miserly than usual.
“Nat (Vercher) and Courtney (Wakefield) got plenty of ball for us, but there’s definitely room for us to improve and convert when we get that ball turned over,” Edwards said.
Wakefield was named best on court for the Roos, along with wing attack Molly Mangan but anyone in red, white and blue could have got the nod.
Meanwhile, Bulldogs coach and centre Tara Bate was far from upset despite the 39-point defeat at home.
“The girls played a brilliant game,” Bate said of the first quarter. “We just went out there today and went ‘you know what, let’s make them work for it and put as much pressure on as possible and play our game’, and that’s exactly what they did.
“Then Wentworth came out and really gave it to them (in the second), what can you do?”
“They are a strong team and it’s great playing against a side like that as it shows you what the girls can do when they work together.
“One thing we can take from that game is that we need to work on those front cuts and just coming to the ball.
“Those minor details, those fundamental skills that we should already have that we get lazy with.”
Despite the expectedly lopsided score, the Bulldogs had some useful performers on the court including Bate, who rolled her left ankle late in the game but has two weeks to recover due a bye this week.
“We had Tayla (Sellens) as our best on and it happens to be her birthday today and she played a ripper, and we put our attacker Amy Lutze as our second, she played really well in there. She just seems to be able to make a difference with her passing and her spacial awareness,” Bate said.
Another one to impress was strong, tall rookie Emma Mottram, who replaced Sophie Fox at shooter late in the encounter.
“She’s one of our juniors, she’s just 13,” Bate said. “She’s a brilliant player and we are just bringing her up (to A Grade).”
