Yr 5 & 6 Netball vs Royal Russell
Today was an opportunity for 4 of our Yr 5&6 netball teams to travel to Royal Russell to play a number of matches in parallel.
Our Yr 6's had one win 16-3 (great work Pink Team) under Alex's watchful eye as captain she moved players around to try and balance the scoreline somewhat, but a number of our players can shoot (Olive, Flo & Ella Jane), and it showed! Player of the match awarded to Zoe, with some lovely defence from Lilka and Imy who prevented our opponents taking the ball into their attacking circle on a number of occasions. Brilliant work ladies!
The Blue Team (2-5) worked hard also, it's been a while since we've played due to half term, and it wasn't warm on the courts, so the scores were 0-2 in the first third, with our shooters not quite able to take the ball in the attacking circle, but some strong centre passes taken from Millie to Nicole, 1-0 to Honeywell in the second (with a lovely goal from Saya, some great defence from Max and Lily in our opponents goal circle, and tenacious ball chasing from Olivia and Nicole) and in the final third 3-1 to Royal Russell (good movement from Jemima couldn't quite translate into goals), with an overall loss 5-2. What was pleasing to see, was that our players remembered after the first 1/3 to space out, hold back and time their move.
Some work on driving forward and coming in front of their defenders will stand them in good sted next time - but it was a balanced game, and we were well matched (and the match 'tea' was a nice treat afterwards)!
Yellow Team (2-0)
A 2-0 win to Honeywell. The Yellows came out onto a cold and windy court with a keen energy to face their Royal Russell opponents. With Isa in C we started strong with great passing to WA Ella and WD Emilie straight to our goal circle. Despite Jess and Milla finding space and good passing only a few of the attempts converted to goals.
The game continued much the same with the yellows being much the stronger team but just unable to turn goals over.
GD - Ruby had some great interceptions stopping the ball going into their goal circle and Safi AK at GK was also always on hand to intercept and pass the ball back to our goal. In fact during the 3 quarters the ball only made it to Royal Russell’s goal circle twice. Great defence girls! Jess finally shooting our 2 goals for a win. I was very proud of the girls behaviour and sportsmanship.
Red Team (A really close 5-6)
This Honeywell Red team have quite a lot of training and match experience under their belts for children of their age, but I was sure the Royal Russell team would be equally schooled. And so they were. On their home courts, they began confident in their team and knowing where each other would be. To our credit, our girls all put on a really strong defence from the word go, and made the RR girls work for it. But despite how hard Delisa and Anneli were defending in the goal circle, the Royal Russell GA was extremely tenacious and proficient for her age (!! – hence why she was awarded player of the match) and kept working to get into space to score. And that she did, one, two, three times. Sometimes when a team starts from behind like that, it feels as if nothing is going right. But we were actually evenly matched and the ball was going end to end – unfortunately, when we got the ball down to our goal end we had no home advantage here and finished the quarter 0-3 down.
Going into the second quarter after being reminded not to panic on the ball and to offload before the receiver’s defender could catch up, we started to look like the team more in control of the game. Bene found space easily through the centre to help drive the ball with Willa to our shooters, Ella and Safia, who were beginning to find a lovely rhythm to their movements around the goal circle. The girls did well to find quick passes to each other and when Safia popped one through the net it felt like the team’s spirits rose. After changing positions with Anneli, it was now Delisa who had to mark the GA, and she did a stirling job, keeping her to only two goals and it felt like that quarter we were more evenly matched at 1-2.
By now, the team were fully warmed up, more confident and raring to go. This third quarter was like watching a different team to the one in the first quarter. We were totally in control of the game from the first whistle. Moving Willa into attack, she and Bene continued their lovely partnership to work the ball through the centre down to our shooters. With Elana in WD, it felt like we had found her best position, as she kept such a tight defence on her opponent that the RR team couldn’t pass to her. She also managed a few interceptions and the RR team were struggling to get the ball down their end. With a number of turnovers like this, the ball was mostly played in our attacking half.
This position also seemed to suit Elana as she had great timing to cut across the court and help pass the ball down to our goal end where we saw some great feeding of the ball in by Bene and Willa to our shooters. Ella and Saf were really working well together now, and Ella had found her groove – she popped, one, two, three lovely goals in. RR were on the back foot and attempted to respond. Anneli and Delisa were relentlessly putting pressure on the RR shooters and had kept them from scoring until now, but their GA managed just one before another goal from Safia meant we had won that quarter 4-1. I was certain we could win this match and was ready to go in with my 3/4 time talk, but then I was informed we were stopping after only three quarters…
I am confident that if we’d played that last quarter, we would have finished with a solid win, but a 5-6 score against a very good team was a great result. These girls played some lovely netball at a very high standard for this age group and should be proud of themselves.
Huge thank you to the Honeywell parents who helped walk and transport us (genius move from one mother, hopping onto an almost empty 319 on the way back with all our players, meaning we made our 5.45pm pick up time)!
Photos attached (you can play spot your player!) and thanks to Sarah & Susie who coached and umpired the Yr 5 teams (red & yellow) brilliantly, so that we could run all the matches in parallel on different courts. Netball was the winner today, with smiles on all our player's faces!
