Supersaints ready to change things up in final

ST Albans coach Nicole Richardson says she is prepared to run a number of different looks on court as she maps out a plan to upset GFL powerhouse Newtown & Chilwell in today’s grand final.

The Supersaints are at fullsquad capacity for the seasondecider, giving Richardson the opportunity to change things up when the heat gets turned up at Kardinia Park.

Central to her plans will be Sri Lankan netball star Tharjini Sivalingam — the towering shooter a key pillar insider the goaling circle.

Sivalingam did not play in the Supersaints’ losses to Newtown & Chilwell this season and the world’s tallest netballer will cause headaches for the Eagles’ star-studded defensive end.

“The thing is we have lots of options now. Having ‘Genie’ (Sivalingam) provides some- thing that they may not have seen before in terms of what we are able to do with our lineup,” Richardson said.

“It’s just a matter of deciding on which way I want to go with a starting line-up. I haven’t decided on that at this point of time.

“I’ve got an abundance of options at the moment, so any one of those options can work on the day. It will be completely dependent on what the girls bring.”

The Eagles are clearly one of the best, if not the best, netball sides in country Victoria and have been undefeated since 2012 as they look for their sixth straight GFL flag.

But Richardson said she believed they were beatable.

“To be honest, I had to have a bit of a laugh at the story I saw in the paper that Newtown was claiming itself as underdogs. To be honest it was laughable,” she said.

“How they can see themselves going into this game as underdogs is beyond me.

“We had a good game against them in the round that we played them. They gave us a bit of a belting in the semifinal.

“Now we have added ‘Genie’ back into the line-up … we haven’t played with her during the season or that semifinal. Definitely if our girls stick to the game plan and execute what they need to execute, then we will really push them to the end.”

St Albans finished off its grand final preparations with a light session on Wednesday, which impressed Richardson.

(I’m) really happy. The girls had a light training run on Wednesday to go through what we need to execute in order to really challenge and push Newtown,” she said.

“We went through some different strategies and bits and pieces, so hopefully the girls are able to execute and we can have a really good game on Saturday.”