By LIAM TWOMEY
VU WESTERN Lightning’s Victorian Netball League season is over after being defeated by Peninsula Waves in the competition’s preliminary final last week.
Following two losses to Waves in the home and away season, VU came out fired up from the opening minutes and quickly established a slight lead.
Lightning remained on top for the next two quarters of the match before Waves launched a final term comeback to snatch a three-goal win.
“We had them on the ropes on a few occasions, at least twice we were six goals up but we weren’t able to deliver the knockout blow,” VU coach Matt Hills said.
“To their credit they kept getting up off the canvas and got the job done.
“We allowed them to score six goals in a row early in the final quarter and that was the ball game.
“Our defensive effort in the last quarter wasn’t bad. They only scored 12 goals but we only scored seven. We couldn’t get the ball through the court and score.
“I think we probably gave the ball back to them six or seven times in the last quarter when we had the chance to close the gap.”
Last week’s result means there will be no repeat of the 2012 VNL grand final which saw western suburbs sides City West Falcons and the Lightning square off in the biggest game of the year.
Instead Falcons will look to make it two premierships in two years when they meet Waves this Wednesday night.
For VU, the Lightning now look ahead to next year.
“It is a very tough competition. It goes seven or eight teams deep and I think any of those top eight can beat each other on any given day,” Hills said. “We won more games than we won last year. The key issue I suppose and the comparison between the two years, last year we got into finals winning five out of our last six games in a bit of a fairy tale and we were able to continue that through finals.
“This year we only won four out of the last eight and in some respects we went into finals with inconsistent form.”
