For what has felt like an eternity, the waiting is nearly over and the season opener of the Suncorp Super Netball league, this Saturday, is upon us! Up first, we’ll see an all-Victorian affair with Melbourne Vixens v Collingwood Magpies going head-to-head at Hisense Arena in #TheBattle.
The Vixens go into the game with the disappointment of falling just two games short of going all the way in Season 1, but midcourter Khao Watts believes the team has been firing this pre-season and can’t wait to try get their season off to a flyer.
Watts said, “how exciting to be taking on our cross-town rivals again, the Magpies, there’s a great rivalry there and I think that it’s a fantastic thing for netball – so it’s going to be a super competitive game just like it was the last two times we met in 2017.
“I think it’s going to be hardcore netball, the intensity is going to lift, and I think you will see a really hard, physical and quality game.”
The Magpies go into the game with four Diamonds Commonwealth Games players in their squad, but despite their hefty run of matches, Watts doesn’t think it will have any bearing on their performance.
She explained, “I honestly don’t think it will have an impact in anyway on the way the girls will play, they would have done all the recovery they needed to do, and I’m sure they are raring to go just as much as we are.”
Magpies shooter Caitlin Thwaites, who topped the shooting tally for the first-time last season with 594 goals at 91% accuracy – believes the extended pre-season this year has been of great benefit to their squad.
Thwaites said, “we have had a long pre-season, which has been really good to get some more of those connections happening with our team.
“It was quite a tough year (last season) with the expectation of being able to automatically start with a new team and have a new team come in – so the fact that we have had a bit of time and have had that extended pre-season has really assisted to gel as a team this year.”
Saturday will be the first time that two teams take each other on with the new ladder system in place, where four points will be awarded for a win, two for a draw and one for a loss – with the added incentive of the win of each individual quarter being worth an extra bonus point.
Fans will be intrigued to see whether players will be keeping one eye on the scoreboard throughout the match and change their game plan accordingly each quarter, and Thwaites said it will be nothing too dissimilar to how they have prepared for various match situations in the past.
She said, “I think we always run scenarios for say, the end of a game or the end of a quarter where we need to score within 30 seconds, or it’s a penalty and you have got 15 seconds.
“It’s more so the fact that it will happen every quarter potentially, as oppose to once in a game, where you need to score two goals in the last 30 seconds or stop a goal, but just having team awareness and instruction and having everybody being on the same page trying to achieve the same thing I think is the main thing.”
Saturday’s game starts at 3.00PM at the Hisense Arena in Melbourne and tickets can be found here: https://supernetball.com.au/fixture/ – alternatively you can catch the match live on Channel 9 and the Netball Live App.
