TWO contenders hoping for premiership success in their respective competitions tested their combinations and fitness ahead of their fast approaching opening matches.
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Hampden league side South Warrnambool and perennial Warrnambool and District league finalists Nirranda squeezed in one last practice match before the season starts.
Allansford, Port Fairy and Kolora-Noorat also had netball practice matches.
The Roosters, who play reigning HFNL champions Koroit on Good Friday, finished on top in the encounter against the Blues but both coaches saw plenty of positives to take into a new season.
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"We were really looking forward to match practice and I think everyone is in the same boat at the moment and until you're actually out on court you don't know what you look like," South Warrnambool coach Leesa Battistello said.
"We were really happy with that effort. We didn't have our full side in and we made a few changes to manage that but we certainly had a chance to work on combinations. I was really happy with it."
Battistello, who is yet to coach a Hampden league game for the Roosters due to the cancellation of the 2020 season, was pleased but said her side still had plenty to work on.
"Our intensity went up and down and we had brilliant moments in every quarter and lost concentration a bit but that is to be expected considering we haven't played for such a long time," she said.
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"We will be taking a lot from that and Nirranda are a really experienced team and playing against some of those bigger bodies for some of our really younger girls it was a good learning curve as well."
Nirranda premiership coach Steph Townsend said it was a good chance for her side to blow out the cobwebs ahead of another season.
"I was really happy with how we backed it up as we had a practice match against Terang Mortlake on Thursday night," she said. "We had a couple of niggles so we didn't have a full strength side but there was still some very promising signs.
"South Warrnambool are a very quality side and will be hard to beat at full strength. All in all happy with how we went. We worked on executing the things we've been working on at training and just our set ups, our plays and those little one percenters that are important to winning our games.
"I thought we did that really well and they had a lot of pressure on us to perform and execute them but I was very happy with it."
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Sean Hardeman
I'm a sports journalist for the Warrnambool Standard who covers a number of different sports across the south-west of Victoria. I enjoy watching cycling, surfing, football, soccer and Formula 1.
I'm a sports journalist for the Warrnambool Standard who covers a number of different sports across the south-west of Victoria. I enjoy watching cycling, surfing, football, soccer and Formula 1.
