Excitement in the air: New-look Tigers start netball season in style

The Tigers kicked off their Warrnambool and District league A grade season off in style on Good Friday in front of a healthy crowd, shaking off any lingering doubts about some key omissions, winning 51-22 against a spirited Old Collegians in mentor Andrew Sloane's first match in charge.

Sobey, who postponed retirement this season to have another crack at a flag, said the new-look squad, featuring new players such as recruits Lena Wright, Lily Schrama and Bernadette Meade looked dynamic as the Tigers look to cover key losses of Georgia Martin (pregnant), Cloe O'Flaherty (pregnant) and Carly Peake (Warrnambool) this season.

O'Flaherty is going to be taking on a co-coaching role alongside Sobey this season with the Tigers champion believing she would be a "gun coach in the making."

"We've had maybe one practice match together and three couldn't come today," she told The Standard.

"Lena hadn't played with us yet, this was her first game really, she hasn't played for 12 months and Bernie hasn't played for two years. It's pretty exciting though."

Sobey said despite a crop of youth coming in and some new recruits debuting, it wouldn't take long for things to fully click into place.

"A grade is a bit different, you're not just there to dictate everyone, they all know what they're doing anyway, it's just trying to create that familiarisation and work out how each other play," she said.

"We're already onto it, we know how Lena plays, we know how Lily plays, we've played against them before.

"It's just trying to get that to flow down the court so we'll be fine. I'm excited, we don't get that pretty often when you lose three players and then gain three players.

"We'll treat the next six rounds really to get to know each other a little bit better and build from there."

The mid-courter said there was plenty of learnings to take out of the contest.

"We wanted to make sure we didn't go too hard too early and use that tactical bench to our advantage," she said.

"We did a lot of only seven-minute quarters which was good because we got to get some game time in. Kelsey Perry was away and she's an absolute gun, she'll miss next week I think on holidays so it was a bit different for sure."

The Warriors showed they had plenty of spirit as they too adjust to a new-look squad and direction.

Sobey was left impressed by some of the Warriors' new players.

"I had no idea at times against them, even though they are really young you simply can't underestimate them," she said.

"If they hang around, they'll be fine, they just need some fine tuning and have some good mentors to guide them. I wouldn't be writing them off in the next few years, kind of like Kolora. We saw how quickly they bounced back."