Vixens make it two from two in Auckland

On Friday evening the Vixens secured a hard-fought 10-goal win over the Northern Mystics, in their first on-court appearance for 2020. It was Kate Eddy’s first outing in Vixens colours, in a game where all ten travelling players had significant court time.

On Saturday the Vixens stepped it up a notch with a comprehensive 44-71 victory over the Northern Stars. It was another game that saw a mix of combinations right from the starting seven, with Kate Eddy starting at GD, Kate Molony at WD and Tayla Honey at C.

The 27-goal victory was bolstered by a 10-18 goal performance in the third quarter.

Melbourne Vixens’ Assistant Coach, Sharelle McMahon, said the trip had been a beneficial first hit out for the season.

“It’s been a great trip and I think from yesterday to today the girls have taken a step up which has been really nice,” McMahon said after Saturday’s win against the Stars. “I think the way they brought the ball through court I think they just probably getting their heads around the zone defence and that different style of marking the ball a bit better today.”

“I think they coped really well today with all the different changes, and I think that’s going to be really important for the season with the rolling subs, we need to get our heads around just being able to come on and off and so that’s been really good.

“We tracked a few different things across the game, particularly our game ball percentages were really high which is a really good marker for us, and it was pretty consistent across the game no matter what changes happened, so that was good,” McMahon continued.

“I think for us we wanted to get a lot of different things out of this trip, part of it was combinations, part of it was just working into things, but we want to be successful every time we step out so to have those two wins against some really tough competition was really great.”

The Vixens will play one final match in Auckland against the Mystics today, in a closed game to both media and public.

The team’s next pre-season hit out will be at the Suncorp Super Netball league’s official pre-season tournament; the Team Girls Cup, which will be held in Sydney from March 27 to 29.