Tara Murray
The Western Warriors are wondering what might have been after nearly ending the Boroondara Express’ unbeaten run in the Victorian Netball League championship on Wednesday night
After a solid performance the previous round against last season’s champions, the City West Falcons, the Warriors took plenty of confidence into Wednesday night with the Express.
The Warriors led throughout the game but were never able to break the experienced Express line up.
That experience shone through late, with the Express sneaking home, winning 56-55.
For Warriors coach Kim Bailey, it was a real bittersweet feeling after the match.
“One goal to the team that hasn’t lost yet is really pleasing but heartbreaking at the same time because we had that game
“I suppose it showed that it’s only our sixth game together.
“I think if you look at it when we play next time, it’ll be a much different game as well and we’re getting better at reading each other every single week.
“Disappointing with the last but maybe we’ve scared some teams.”
Bailey said the result showed that they can match it with the top teams. She said they tried some different things that worked well for large parts of the game.
“They played a wall really well on us and we knew that they were going to play a wall, so we went back and we trained for it,” she said.
“Then we actually trained to do the box properly ourselves and it’s just knowing when to do the switch from a wall of the box to one on one
“We had a couple of little errors like someone got a falcon and just little things that didn’t go our way, but you have to live with those.”
Bailey said it was a bit of a mixed bag with player performances for her side.
Kim Borger put up 42 goals to again be the main target up front.
“One of the big improvers in our team… is Jasmine Fraser,” Bailey said.
“First year playing championship, and she’s just built week on week and to play on [Isabelle] Hodgson and do such a great job there was really good.
“To have Nat [Tommasini] come in and having Ruby [Barkmeyer] taken off her, I thought it was awesome as well.
“Julia [Woolley] just run and ran and run tonight.
“Our goalers are they’re not the youngest goalers in the world, but I’ll tell you what their the most skilful.”
The Warriors under-23s had another tough night, losing to the Express 64-45.
Bailey said that side was still a work in progress, they just can’t gel yet.
“I don’t think the trust in each other is there yet,” she said. “We just need to go out there and do it.”
The Warriors this week face the Bendigo Strikers. The Strikers championship team also lost by one goal to the Casey Demons on Wednesday night.
“They’ve done really well,” Bailey said. It’s a really mixed bag this season. “
