Magpies eye second half of season improvement

CASTLEMAINE coach Vanessa Saunders hopes the Magpies’ first win in more than two years will give her side plenty of belief and impetus for a stronger second half of the season.

The Magpies broke a 778-day drought in between wins with a 57-43 win over league newcomers Broadford in round 8 of BFNL A-grade netball.

While they were unable to replicate the victory in last Saturday’s clash against BFNL powerhouse Sandhurst, Saunders said with one win on the board and with half a season together under their belts, the Magpies could look forward to plenty of improvement during the second round of home and away matches.

“It’s pleasing that we have an A-grade team now and aren’t just filling it with the juniors, who have had to play up (grades) in the past,” she said.

“We’re very realistic about where we are at. We now have an A-grade side – it’s not a Kangaroo Flat side – but we have a team and we’re not filling it in with juniors.

“We are going to keep working hard and keep developing.”

“We haven’t been able to find that extra gear, but they did (against Broadford).”

The win was the Magpies’ first since a 41-27 win over South Bendigo in April of 2024.

They did not field an A-grade team in 2025.

An obvious key against the Kangaroos was a nearly full complement of players, something they struggled with in the first nine rounds.

Only three players from their A-squad (A-grade and A-reserve) were missing against the Kangaroos.

As important as the win, crucial foundations are being laid for the future.

“There is still a long way to go this year, but 2027 is shaping up as a good one for us,” Saunders said.

“(Defender) Bridie Semmens and (goal attack) Taleisha Ahmat were the standouts against Broadford, but there hasn’t been just one standout player this season.

“Different players have stepped up.

“There’s been times when Tegan (Maddern) has stepped up at goal attack and sacrificed her actual shooting to feed it into the ring, or we’ve brought in Liv Henderson from A-res and she has stepped up as a young one.

“We have a couple of midcourters who have come out of B-grade or B-res from other clubs – Abbey Klemm and Grace Brady, who are two of our footballers as well – to have a crack at A-grade and they have fit right in.

“Actually three of our girls who are from our (senior women’s) football team are sometimes backing up from a Friday night game.

“That takes a bit of load management. If they’ve had too many knocks or whatnot, we take that into consideration, which is why we have an A-squad, to move players through as cover.”

 

A few more wins aside, a definite aim for the Magpies in the second half of the season will be reducing the margin in losses against individual teams.

“There are some teams that are the benchmark, but especially the teams we are a bit closer to on the ladder, we’d like to match them or get over the line,” Saunders said.

“I believe we can do that.

“From here, we’ll look to streamline things a bit and hopefully get some more A-graders in next year.

“If you look at our teams, a lot of them are first-year teams.

“Most of the 15-and-unders are first-years, so they are only babies.

“Our 17-and-unders (from 2025) all went up, so you are rebuilding again.

“Each of those junior groups, we are filling the teams, but they are only young compared to others.

“Pleasingly, Ella Rixon, who is in 17s, has played a couple of A-grade games.”

A member of the BFNL’s 15-and-under interleague team, Piper Fynch, who plays predominantly in the 17-and-unders, has also featured in the A-reserve team.

Crucially, Saunders said morale was still high at Camp Reserve and the workload being shared, paying credit to her dual netball operations managers Mel Oldfield and Cass Berry.

Disappointed to have missed the win due to a family commitment in Queensland, Saunders was being sent video and texts of live updates.

“I pretty much got a blow-by-blow summary of the game. I couldn’t have been more ecstatic with how the girls went,” she said.

“We have lots to work on, but the girls were able to execute on what we’ve been doing at training and lift.”

“We made some changes as we have been doing all season and it was nice to see them come off.

“It could have gone either way and the discussion would have been, ‘Vanessa, what are you going to do now?’

“We knew we had to win this one, but the scoreline showed we can push some of the other teams we finished close to.”