Sport
13 June, 2025
Lions' netballers finals aspirations within reach
In her third year as coach and second year at Great Western, Tessa O’Callaghan is pleased with where Great Western sits heading into the second half of the season.
O’Callaghan started coaching in 2023 for the Stawell Warriors A-grade before moving to Great Western.
The Lions are sitting fifth on the ladder with five wins, and have improved vastly from last season, where they finished ninth with five wins.
O’Callaghan highlighted the improvement the team has made.
“We have improved our general gameplay and game sense,” O’Callaghan said.
“When I arrived, there was not a lot of cohesiveness and that was one thing we are working on to ensure step-by-step we are building.”
O’Callaghan said everyone has improved this year.
“Anna-Rose Keating playing again this year from last year has improved in leaps and bounds, and as one of our key defenders alongside Hannah Blight, who joined us this year, they are playing well,” O’Callaghan said.
“Kim Hay has had a fantastic season and Sarah Mills stepping up from B-grade is playing well in goals.
“Monique Dowling, Courtney Morrow, and Ruby Thomas as a youngster are all playing well.”
The goal at the start of the season was to play finals and they are well on their way.
“Our main goal of playing finals is in reach,” O’Callaghan said.
“We have a couple of games coming up which we must win.
“If we get our heads in the game and get it done, we can still get there and there is a lot of hard work to be done.”
It starts this week against a Penshurst outfit sitting second on the ladder with six wins.
“I know from our point of view they are strong across the whole court,” O’Callaghan said.
“When we get the turnovers, we need to be able to score the goals, and to do that we need to keep possession of the ball once we have it.”
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