23s steel themselves for tough run to finals

BENDIGO Strikers 23-and-under team will embrace a tough three games ahead, with coach Fiona Boyer believing an arduous remaining fixture will leave her side primed for finals.

The Strikers missed the chance to move into fourth place on the ladder on Sunday, after a 66-58 home defeat to City West Falcons at Mercy Junortoun Sports Precinct.

Despite the loss, the Strikers (9-6) are still on track to reach finals.

They sit six points clear in fifth spot of Hawks (sixth) and a further two points clear of Casey Demons (seventh) and Western Warriors (eighth).

A tough remaining fixture includes top side Geelong Cougars (scheduled on Wednesday this week), followed by the Demons and Hawks.

The clash against Casey will also be played at Junortoun on Sunday, July 12.

A loss against the Falcons was the Strikers’ third in a row, their hopes of victory taking a severe blow in a match-defining 13-20 opening quarter.

“We were great in the last quarter, but we needed to do that a lot earlier,” Boyer said after the Strikers produced a 20-13 finale after being down by 15 at three-quarter time.

“The turnovers we wanted came in the last quarter and we scored from those, which got us up and about, but it was just a little bit too late in the game.

“To their credit, (City West) played well and forced a lot of our errors.”

Despite the sequence of three losses, Boyer believed the Strikers were on track to achieve their goal of making finals for the second straight year and having an impact once there.

“It’s a busy time of the year for the girls and you notice that; they’re well into the depths of their club netball as well,” she said.

“We’d like to be playing a bit better than we have in the last few games, but that said, we still have three games to lead ourselves into finals.

“We will be looking to polish up some of those things that have been costly over the last few weeks.

“Obviously we would have liked to have been on the other side of the ledger in a few of those losses,” she added in reference to a recent two-goal defeat against Peninsula Waves and five-goal loss to Melbourne University Lightning.

“There’s been a couple of losses over the season I thought we could have come away with.

“Today (Sunday) was tough, we didn’t get the start we did against them last time and that certainly stood us in good stead.

“Looking back, we haven’t started the last few weeks well, so that’s something to look at.

“We finished strongly, as we did last time against Falcons, that’s something we’ll have in mind for later on.”

The Strikers beat the Falcons by one goal in their previous encounter back at the end of March.

In terms of better performances, Asha Gray stood out with her steadying influence and pressure in centre, while Claire McGee made the most of her opportunities at goal attack, contributing 17 goals at 85 per cent accuracy across two quarters of court time.

Under a heavy barrage, Boyer said the defence had held up strongly and certainly had the best of the final quarter.

Part of the rotation, Gabby Moore continued to impress in her third 23-and-under game since being elevated from the VNL reserves team.