Katie Kakoschke is enjoying her netball as much as ever. The Melton defender, who is approaching 40, knows that even though she’s playing some of her best netball, her career is coming to an end.
With that in mind, the defender agreed to coach the Ballarat Netball League club’s A-grade side this season.
“I played here at Melton last year and I absolutely loved it,” she said.“At 39, I have to look at retirement, and the girls asked me if I want to coach this year.
“I’ve never coached before … I wanted to give it a try and, hopefully, it works.
“I’ll have one more year playing and definitely want to look at continuing coaching after that.”
Kakoschke finished fourth in the league’s best and fairest and won the Bloods’ top award. She said while she’s playing her best netball her body isn’t handling the workload as it once did.
She said she was looking forward to taking on the challenge of coaching.
“I know I’m the coach but I want the girls to have some input. Everyone can have their say.”
She said most of last year’s playing group had stayed on, with only one or two players not returning.
The club has looked for reinforcements across the court, especially at the goaling end, where they struggled last year.
One player not returning is former playing coach and main shooter Renee Hulls, who will coach Darley this year.
“We have a couple of girls trying out to fill the [shooting] spots,” Kakoschke said. “There’ve been a lot of girls at training trying out for all the teams. We’re still deciding on what teams they’ll be in.
“We’ve got a few younger girls coming up from under-19s as well.”
Kakoschke said the Bloods are hoping to improve on where they finished last year, at ninth after a slow start.
“We would love to win as many games as possible,” she said. “Last season didn’t go too well at the start of the year. We worked our way into it in the second half.
“The goal is not to take half a season to get into it. We want to finish higher than last season.”
