POPPETS Netball Club has secured yet another A1 premiership, after defeating Macquarie in the grand final on the weekend.
A strong second half performance from the Poppets saw them emerge 53-43 winners over Macquarie, who finished atop the Hawkesbury City Netball Association ladder and were premiers last year.
It was the second grand final victory in three years for Poppets, after they defeated Huxley in 2015.
Poppets player Jamie Brennan said it was her second premiership with the club and was over the moon about it.
“I feel amazing, it is awesome. It has been a long time coming,” she said.
“We just won as a team. We had an amazing effort.”
The first half of the match was evenly matched between the two teams.
Macquarie moved the ball slickly, while the Poppets player were clearly pushing hard, as evidenced by a number of slips and falls.
The second half of the match was when Poppets began to dominate. The third quarter in particular saw Poppets take a huge lead. The fourth quarter saw Macquarie claw some of that lead back, but the damage was done.
Teegan Ryan was unstoppable in the goal circle. She rarely missed when given an opportunity to shoot, and the Poppets players fed her the ball.
In the first half, fast ball movement from Macquarie gave Sally Cain and Lillian Marokakis scoring opportunities, but these dried up in the second half, as Poppets strongly contested the ball.
Macquarie’s Rachael Lovering was all over the court early in the match, but her huge work rate saw her tire, and she became less effective.
In the third quarter, a number of Macquarie mistakes lead to the ball being turned over, and the Poppets took full advantage of those mistakes.
Brennan said she thought the Poppets had the advantage at the end of match.
“We worked hard all season on fitness and it was there to get through to the end,” she said.
“We thought the last time we played them we were a bit fitter than they were.”
Poppets coach Craig Sullivan said the girls in his team fully deserved the victory.
“These are a great bunch of girls, we've probably been the dominant team for the past four years,” he said.
“I have coached the girls for along time now. They are a fantastic team and I am proud to be a part of it.”
Sullivan said he used an article published in The Gazette two weeks ago after Macquarie secured back to back minor premierships to fire the girls up.
“We weren't always mentioned so it spurred us on,” he said.
“We a bit of a family team like Macquarie too. We have three pairs of sisters in the team.”
He said a poor start to the year had Poppets playing from behind all season.
“It is a tough competition and we fought our way back to second spot after a couple of poor performances early in the year.
“We played our best at the end of the year, which is when you need to be doing it.”
Sullivan paid tribute to his opponents, and said they had been one of the better teams over the past few seasons.
“Well done to Macquarie they've been strong for the last few years and have a lot of young players in their team like us,” he said.
Saturday saw a number of other netball grand finals.
In the A2 Grade, Colo Pink defeated Huxley 35-27.
Macquarie defeated Pitt Town-Oakville Purple by 37-25 in the B1 Grade; Green Hills narrowly beat Poppets Pink 42-38 in B2 Grade; and, Riverstone topped Macquarie 36-30 in the B3 Grade.
In The C1 Blue Grade, Riverstone Red beat Pitt Town-Oakville Purple 38-36 to be one of two clubs to claim two senior grand final wins; Pitt Town-Oakville Black topped Woodlands with a score of 31-13 in the C1 Maroon Grade; and, in C2 GRade Colo Black beat Green Hills 35-24, to be the other club to win two senior grand finals.
