Sport
7 April, 2022
Young Magpies show promise
CAMPERDOWN played a competitive game aga-inst tough opponents Terang Mortlake, falling short by just two goals to lose 38-40 at home on Saturday.
CAMPERDOWN played a competitive game aga-inst tough opponents Terang Mortlake, falling short by just two goals to lose 38-40 at home on Saturday.
Returning player Annabelle Lucas gave a strong performance at wing defence, lending composure to her young side and locking down the Mapgie’s defence, while Lily Eldridge played well to provide plenty of movement in goals.
Coach Leah Sinnott said her young team’s maturity and grit throughout the game was admirable given the new line-up.
“Everyone in the team stepped up, you wouldn’t have known that we hadn’t played much together yet,” she said.
“I was really impressed with how everyone got on board and brought their own leadership to the court.”
Sinnot said Sophie Conheady, promoted from under 17s for her first game in the senior side, epitomised the level-headedness shown by her side.
“Sophie stepped onto the court and looked like she’d been there for a year or more,” she said.
“Everyone took on a mature outlook for the game. We have some really experienced players, and it was important to have them out there, but we weren’t overly reliant on them.”
The level of composure shown by her side has buoyed Sinnott’s hopes in what her team can achieve going forward.
“You’d rather win, but the way they played, the things I thought would need more work didn’t seem an issue on the day,” she said.
“We had good space, everyone was driving, our timing was great, it’s pretty exciting.
“The fact they were able to pull all that together with minimal training as a whole team means now we can work on lots of other things to further advance our gameplay.”
Camperdown face South Warrnambool this week, who were triumphant at Cobden last Saturday, and Sinnott knows they’ll provide a different level of competition.
“That’ll be a big challenge, that’s for sure, particularly looking at what they did to Cobden,”she said.
“We know the position we’re in, but we don’t want to be daunted by them, we just want to focus on small things in our team and try to build on it each week.
“If we can be really competitive, keep setting small goals for ourselves and come away with some wins while we’re doing it, we’ll be pretty pleasedwith that.”