A very young team of Eastwood Ryde netball players in their first State League competition ever has shown their wealth of talent in reaching the Grand Final of their division after a hard fought season.

Their path to the Grand Final included 18 tightly contested round matches played each Saturday at the Anne Clark Centre at Lidcombe against opposition from as far south as Shoalhaven and north to Gosford with an open age group of often very experienced players to compete against.

With excellent coaching from Karen Taylor-Gurney and Jodi Thomas the girls worked hard to prepare themselves to face a very tough opposition in Parramatta Auburn who had only lost one match all season when the ERNA girls managed an upset win in the second round. So the girls knew they had a good chance on the day with a big effort all round.

The first quarter began goal for goal with a 100% goal average from our talented shooters Lauren Salmon and Natalie Evans finishing the quarter with an even scoreline 9-9. A few nervous errors let us down in the second quarter and we dropped behind by 5 at half time 17-22. Despite a few changes from the bench to the mid court and great moments of play we just couldn't seem to make ground against a very tough opposition. Some costly umpiring decisions went against us and we couldn't adapt to a mix of calls from the umpires that required some modification to our game. Our centre court players, Anna Pike, Kate Sommerville, Ellen Stearne and Nat Simmonds worked hard to secure the ball and feed our goal shooters who continued with their accurate shooting. The young defence team of Angelica Triant and Courtney Moore backed up by Alyssa Ross in the second half gave a strong performance against some talented opposition in the Parramatta circle to help the team make a good recovery in the third quarter to only be down by 4 at three-quarter time. Our bench players, Michaela Craft, Cassie Monaghan and Alex Campbell who had worked so hard through the season to get us to the finals were a big support to the on-court players.

Confident in the ability of their young charges the coaches left the team as they were for the final quarter and they all gave a huge effort to try to fight back into the lead. Despite 100% goal state in the final quarter we just couldn't do enough to turn the game around and the final scoreline was 35-42.

To reach the Grand Final in their first year in State League was a very creditable performance and the girls should feel very proud of themselves for a great effort.