Victorian Netball League: City West Falcons beat Geelong Cougars in grand final

THIS was meant to be a rebuilding year for City West Falcons. On Sunday, the club hoisted the silverware after a 56-48 grand final victory over red-hot favourites Geelong Cougars.

City West Falcons celebrate their VNL Championship Division title. Picture: Netball Victoria

THIS was meant to be a rebuilding year for City West Falcons.

Coach Marg Lind harboured ambitions of securing a Victorian Netball League finals berth, but anything beyond that appeared nothing but a pipedream.

On Sunday, the Falcons hoisted the silverware after a 56-48 grand final victory over red-hot favourites Geelong Cougars at the State Netball Centre.

Geelong entered the Championship Division decider riding the momentum of a 10-game winning run, but it confronted an opponent full of confidence.

The triumph was the Falcons’ seventh in a row after they only secured their top-four spot in the last round of the home-and-away season.

The powerhouse club has claimed five titles since the VNL’s inception in 2008, but this one might be the pick of the bunch given the circumstances.

“It’s right up there,” victorious coach Marg Lind said.

“This one’s really special because we had so many challenges this year.

“We didn’t even think we were going to get there (finals) and we scraped in.

“It feels like we’ve been playing finals for seven weeks.”

The Falcons’ lift in form correlated with the returns of their four ANL players — Jane Cook, Molly Jovic, Jacqui Newton and Tahnysha Salanoa — from Victorian Fury duties.

They all performed admirably in the season finale, along with captain Maggie Lind and Zoe Davies.

The Falcons led by three goals at halftime before pulling away in the second half.

“I think we did some really good homework on their attack end,” Lind said.

“We took a bit of a risk and played a slightly different strategy to what we normally do, hoping that would dent their confidence a little bit, and I think that really paid off.

“Our team zone defence worked really well.

“Our attack end, we tried a couple of different things too and I felt in the first quarter, even though we led by two at quarter-time, it was too uncomfortable for us.

“We made some really stupid errors trying to be something we weren’t, so we basically decided we’d revert to the game we’ve been playing the last few weeks and that opened it up.”

Lind also praised the club’s next wave of talent — Imogen Sexton, Madelyn Gray, Uneeq Palavi and Anger Akec — who helped it secure its first title since 2013.

The group played key roles in the absence of the Falcons’ ANL talent.

“They didn’t get on in the finals series, but they allowed us to stay in touch, so that puts them in a good position for next year,” Lind said.

“Credit to those young kids. I told them that we couldn’t have done it without them.

“It shows a lot of promise going forward because the young ones have been able to put us in a position to win a final.”