City West’s Kathleen Knott lunges for the ball as Victoria University’s Fiona Themann tries to spoil. Picture: KRISTIAN SCOTT
By MICHAEL ESPOSITO
CITY West Falcons produced one of its best performances of the season with a thumping 60-28 win over western rivals Victoria University Western Lightning on Wednesday.
The Falcons claimed payback after their three-goal loss to the Lightning in round three with a 21-goal first quarter setting up the dominant win.
Kathleen Knott and Maggie Lind were unstoppable in the attacking third, with Knott scoring 19 goals at 100 per cent accuracy in the first quarter, and finishing with 47 goals.
The Falcons won every quarter and maintained its one-game buffer on top of the Victorian Netball League ladder.
Coach Marg Lind said the performance corrected several mistakes made in the local rivals’ previous encounter.
“We were certainly disappointed in our error rate when we played them last time, we made a heap of errors in the first quarter and gave them a head start, so we were very determined to not put ourselves in the same situation,” she said. “Early when we played VU we probably hadn’t settled our combinations, and our defenders barely turned the ball over.
“We had two intercepts in that first game and that’s not good enough, and we’ve addressed that since and I think Peta (Fay) and Casey (Price) have developed a lot better as a combination now and so have Kath and Maggie, and I think that’s starting to show on the board.”
Defenders Fay and Price were dominant, effecting numerous turnovers and forcing Lightning’s goalers into making difficult shots. Fay was recognised with three MVP votes for her shut-down job on Melissa McCauley.
Lind said this was one of the tightest VNL seasons in recent memory, and her side will need to maintain their intensity in the remaining six rounds of the home-and-away season.
“I think in the second half of the season teams that keep their heads down tend to perform a bit more solidly,” she said.
“It’s really hard in winter, people can lose motivation, but we made sure we’ve stayed in the weights gym and done all the extra little things, and I think the losses (in rounds eight and nine) helped us.”
