Eagles’ clever play prevails
NEWTOWN & Chilwell called on its smarts and experience to prevail against finals contender Bell Park with a 58-41 win on Saturday.
Eagles coach Jason Woolley praised the intelligence of his players to adapt to any situation on court.
“We come into each game focused on the task at hand, and I think that is a strength of ours,” Woolley said.
“We are an experienced and smart team, we know our limitations on the day and we change our tactics depending on the team we play.
“Saturday we focused on applying as much defensive pressure as possible to shut down Bell Park’s connections.
“We pushed their centre court high and wide and attempted to reduce connections between Kaitlyn Sheringham and Bree Walton.
“Attackingly we had to change the pace, Kath Knott returned after being out with injury, we slowed down the attacking end to ensure that we placed the ball perfectively into her.
“For the last few years we’ve had this mindset and will continue to do so, it has been working for us, especially as we’ve had a run of tough teams. Usually you get a tough team every couple of weeks, but not consecutively, that has been, and will be, a challenge for us with South Barwon next week and St Albans the week after.”
Bell Park now has a tough run ahead.
Coach Jackie Riddle believes her side needs to embrace the challenge and play to its strengths over the coming weeks to prove it deserves to be a finals contender.
“Newtown is clearly the benchmark and the team to beat in the GFL, as they have been for years,” she said.
“Our focus today was on playing our style of game, converting off all turnovers and aiming for 15 goals a quarter.
“For us, defensively we were great, we focused on creating turnovers, but our conversion rate was low, as Newtown’s defensive end were strong.
“That said, we performed better this round than last time against Newtown, with better concentration and the scoreline didn’t reflect that.
“We have had a couple of weeks of tough games, so now we need to continue to focus on what works for us. Next week, our conversion rate will be crucial, coming up against St Albans.”