Eagles not treating rival as easy prey

NEWTOWN & Chilwell will approach this week’s clash with North Shore like any other game according to coach Jason Woolley, with the Eagles keen to avoid flirting with their form ahead of their next bye.

North Shore sits on the bottom of the GFL netball table, winless with a percentage of 14.39, while Newtown remains undefeated and is on track for its sixth championship.

But Woolley says while those outside the club might see the match as an opportunity to mix things up, his focus was on ensuring his side started to perfect areas of their game that needed some slight improvement.

“We’ve had some really tough games. Colac was a tough one, followed by St Albans and then a couple where we got over the line late, straight so our approach is just to continue and keep rolling heading into the next bye,” he said.

“You’re always looking to tidy things up throughout the whole year and look after the girls, so for us it’s just another day and business as usual.

“You don’t want to try to get too fancy, so we’ll just look to continue what we’ve been doing.”

The Eagles are coming off a five-goal victory against Leopold — its narrowest win of 2018 — and faced its biggest threat to the title in St Albans the previous week, providing them a challenging run of matches they managed to overcome.

Woolley said player availability had tested Newtown’s depth but he was pleased with how his players had handled the heat.

“It has been interesting, Kath (Knott) has been carrying an injury, Amy (Wirth) and Dani (Stewart) missed the game on the weekend, so it has been a good test for our depth,” he said.

“A few players have had to play a few different roles, and Nat Tommasini has gone into defence. She started a few years ago as a goaler, last year she went into the midcourt and now she finds herself back in defence. So we’re just nutting through those types of things.”

Newtown goes to Windsor Park on Saturday, with the Agrade clash starting at 1.35pm.