LIAM PHILLIPS
IT was a relatively cruisy day in the
office for South Gawler’s Barossa,
Light & Gawler Netball Association
Senior 1s on Saturday, handily
beating Freeling 63-17 to bank another
home win.
South Gawler coach Rebecca
Brading said it was no secret Freeling
was a rebuilding side, but that did not
change how the Lions approached the
contest.
“When we have these sort of
games, the main focus is to be unpredictable
and not just run the same
actions from the same spots every
time,” she said.
“We know it will work most of
the time, but it’s about preparing for
those top sides where we know they
will adjust quickly and take away
what we’re trying to do if it’s too
obvious and we don’t show other
looks.
“It’s easy to build bad habits, so we
were really focused on making sure
that didn’t happen and just played
four quarters of high-pressure, smart
netball.”
Brading said that since the result
was locked away reasonably early in
the game, it was a good opportunity
to keep fresh legs rotating in on a
warm day.
“I’ve spoken about our focus on
having strong depth this season,
and it comes in handy in situations
like this where we were able to
change up the centre position every
quarter,” she said.
“We want to keep pushing hard for
four quarters, so getting some fresh
legs in is important, but also getting
players into positions they don’t
normally play to give them different
challenges – like I put myself into
wing defence and moved Maddie
(Bush) into centre.
“In saying that, we did lose our goal
shooter Aimee Feltham last week, so
there wasn’t too much experimentation
as we tried to settle this new lineup,
but we were able to give Kelsey
(Wilksch) from our Senior 2s a run
in goal shooter in the last quarter and
she did really well.
“Rachel King and Ashleigh Mickan
also deserve shout-outs, because
they never got lazy and kept linking
and driving really well.”