Confident Blue set to defend title on diamond

VICTORIA Blue coach Dean Anglin says his squad is primed to defend its women’s national championships title when the tournament opens in Geelong today.

Blue takes to the Geelong Baseball Centre diamond as warm favourites, boasting a squad packed with Australian representatives.

It gives Anglin confidence that his team can go back-toback.

“The girls have worked hard over the last four months to be ready and as defending champions we know we have a target on our back,” Anglin said.

“We want to make sure we’re ready for it and we don’t take anything for granted.

“We’ve basically got the same team. There’s 14 returning players.

“We’ve been building a team for five years and most of the squad is reasonably young. Over the course of time we expect to be up top and fighting for the medal we want which is the gold one.”

Blue begins its title defence against Victoria White, a state development team.

The two teams were selected from the one training camp which means that Blue, on paper, should comfortably account for White.

Leslie (Blue) and Claire Costa (White) are among the local contingent to play in this year’s tournament.

“The Vic White team is pretty new. They’re a development team and we expect that there should be a fair difference between the two teams,” Anglin said.

“That sets us up for what happens in two or three years time. For Vic White it’s not what happens in 2018, it’s what happens in 2021, 2022.”