Devils take away lessons from first loss of season

DON’T expect reigning BFNL premier Darley to dwell on its first loss of the 2026 season against North Ballarat last Saturday.

Describing the Devils’ 45-40 defeat as a bit of a wake-up call, 2025 premiership coach Shannon Blackman said her side would take whatever lessons they could out of the game and quickly move on.

And they will need to with a suddenly huge game against an in-form Ballarat on the horizon, after the Swans stunned powerhouse Sunbury to notch up their fourth victory of the season off the back of a winless 2025 campaign.

The Devils were made to pay for an average opening quarter, finding themselves five goals down at the first break, a margin that persisted throughout the encounter at Mars Stadium.

Blackman put their slow opening down to a combination of a sharp North Ballarat and an interrupted preparation.

“I was saying to the girls at the end (of the game), we missed a couple of trainings, where we haven’t been together, so we were a little bit disconnected on court,” she said.

“You could see that throughout the whole game; we’d get a run on and then they (North Ballarat) would get a run on.

“We started really slowly and could never quite get it (the margin) back. They are a great team; they made us pay for that.

“There’s a few things to tidy up and in a way, we needed this game to switch on, but we just weren’t switched on.”

While the Devils were never able to bridge the gap, Blackman said they had persisted well and showed plenty of resilience to stay in the contest.

“We were disappointed, but we just have a few things to work on at training in our attack end,” she said.

“I thought our defence was pretty good – they won quite a lot of ball.

“With the (wet) weather, we tried to play our game style and it just wasn’t working, so we needed to adapt and we didn’t adapt quick enough.”

The Devils won just one quarter for the game, the third, 12-10.

Albeit the second and last were won by the Roosters by a lone goal, highlighting the closeness between the teams after quarter-time.

Tilly Elliot was the standout for the Devils in defence, with Jaimee Smith prominent in her time at wing defence.

Paying credit to the Roosters, Blackman praised young goal keeper Maggie Smith for her role on Devils’ sharpshooter Olivia Cawthray, who finished with 36 goals at 75 per cent.

Still pleased with her side’s overall season, Blackman backed the Devils to rebound strongly against Ballarat.

The in-form Swans will be coming off their biggest win in many seasons, a three-goal upset of Sunbury.

“Ballarat has recruited well, so it’s going to be another big game,” Blackman said.

“This week at training we will be working on a few things; training hard and training as we play.

“You could see that the missed training affected us.”