By Justin Flynn
Perennial premiership winners Newtown & Chilwell front up for yet another Geelong Netball League grand final this weekend, but this time they are not the defending champions.
The Eagles won seven flags in a row from 2013 to 2019, before two COVID interrupted seasons before losing to Colac in last year’s decider.
It’s an unfamiliar situation for the Eagles to be chasing a premiership rather than defending one.
“I think we were actually kind of fortunate enough to go through the preliminary rounds and the elimination finals because we hadn’t been through that before,” defender Ruby Pekin-Schlicht said.
“As Jules (Julia Woolley) was telling us on Saturday, she’s like, this is an opportunity for us to grow a bit more as a team and work out different combinations and figure out stuff that we haven’t been able to do beforehand.
“So the mindset for this Saturday is just that we came off a good game against South Barwon so we’re really happy with that. Had a bit of a rough start, so we’re going to try and come out fighting on Saturday and hope for the best.”
Pekin-Schlicht said the match-up between two of the competition’s stars in Colac goalshooter Uneeq Palavi and Eagles defender Brooke Allan would go a long way to deciding the outcome.
“They’re both amazing players like Brooke being winning that ANC (Australian Netball Championships) with Indie (Indya Forde), they did an amazing job at that and then Uneeq, you know plays for Tonga at the World Cup, like you can’t get two better players like that,” she said.
Colac wing attack Emily Murfitt said her side will welcome back star midcourter Zara Walters this week in what will be a massive boost.
“We haven’t had her for a little while so she’ll bring something else to our game,” she said.
“She’ll bring something else to our game through our midcourt.”
Murfitt said winning last year hadn’t led to complacency of any kind and that it made her squad even hungrier.
“We’re probably a lot more determined to do it again this year,” she said.
“Last year, it was an amazing feeling, it’s almost contagious, you just want to do it again and we’re going to come out on the weekend firing and ready to get another win.
“You just want to do it all again. So we’re going to come out on the weekend firing and ready to get another win.”
The Geelong Netball League A Grade grand final is on Saturday September 23 at Leopold Memorial Reserve at 3.20pm. The game will be streamed live at aflbarwon.com.au/barwon-media/afl-barwon-tv
