Lesson learnt: Demons sure not to underestimate Lions, young guns lead win

Coming into the game after two tight contests, coach Olivia Jolliffe changed up her starting seven to give her up and comers additional time on court.

Confident they could put a win, Jolliffe said the changed line up was a chance for her to see new players and combinations on court, not a response to their opponents ladder position.

"We started with a couple of quality games there, and I think for us it's just about consistency, we're trying to keep ourselves accountable in games, setting our own targets," Jolliffe said.

"We don't take any game for granted, we learnt our lesson last year, we fronted up a couple of teams and had under done ourselves.

"We learnt our lesson that there are really quality teams in this competition and you can't take any game for granted or make any assumptions"

Starting on the bench this weekend, Jolliffe said it was a good chance fro her to really see what was happening on court and not stress about her own game.

Admitting to sometimes getting caught watching while on court, she enjoyed the chance to watch how the incoming talent especially was performing on court.

Abbey Grant was particularly impressive on court after stepping into higher grade netball this season.

Grant spent most of 2023 in B Grade and played up in A reserves a handful of times.

Saturday's win was her second game in A grade this year.

"It's a real great team vibe, one of our younger ones came on and had a cracking start," Jolliffe said.

"Abbey Grant came away players player on the weekend and it was so well deserved too, she's just an absolute pocket rocket that's been given an opportunity and she's lapping it up.

"It's great to see her hitting her stride and getting out there and putting into practise what we've been doing at training.

"Em Jolliffe had a cracking game too, she really stepped up and executed speed and agility on court and made it really nice for our goalers to coordinate that timing off the centre pass and into those feeds."

While overall a positive weekend on court, Jolliffe said there's still things she'd like to see improve in coming weeks.

Of particular focus is keeping momentum throughout the entire game.

The squad feeds off one another almost too well, to where they all ease up on court at the same time, often giving their opponents time to find momentum.

"We seem to all trough at the same time, like peaks and troughs, so really just trying to minimise that amount of time where we take a breath at the same time," she said.

"That's when you can get a quick two or three goal turnaround and there's a sniff of that momentum for the other team.

"There's just patches where it just takes us that fraction of a bit longer to actually get ourselves into gear, so that's been a focus and will continue to be a focus for us this year, game after game to make sure that we're holding ourselves accountable."

Around the league there were plenty of big wins, with Griffith, Coolamon, and Mango continuing their good starts to the year.

Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes 61 d Wagga Tigers 37 on Good Friday.

Coolamon 80 d Leeton-Whitton 29 on Thursday night.

Griffith 59 d Narrandera 41 on Saturday.

Collingullie-Wagga 62 d Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong 27 on Saturday.