Tara Murray
It’s been a big couple of weeks for Kyneton defender and new Riddell District Football Netball League Ryan Medallist.
Shepherd in her first season in the competition claimed the top netball honour from two-time winner Ty Coppinger.
Shepherd said it was unexpected to claim the medal.
“I still can’t really believe it myself,” she said a couple of days after the win. “It’s amazing.
“I kept thinking I was going to be overtaken. Even in the last round I thought it was so close, but Woodend had the bye in the last round, so it started to kick in.”
Shepherd said she thought she played a pretty consistent season for the Tigers despite it having some challenges.
She said the competition was a good standard.
“It was hard as Kyneton didn’t have a full A-grade for most of the season,” she said. “I think we only started with seven players and because of injuries, illness and players going on holidays, we had to have a lot of B-grade fill ins.
“It was challenging, it was lots of fun playing in the comp.”
For Shepherd, she’s now spent three years at Kyneton after having a connection with coach Dianne Guest-Oakley.
Shepherd and Guest-Oakley’s daughter, Claire Oakley, had played together in zone academy and Guest-Oakley put it to her if she ever wanted to play footy netball they would love to have her.
She said she loved playing for Kyneton.
The Ryan Medal was a second league best and fairest win for Shepherd in the space of two weeks having claimed the Northern Netball League division 1 best and fairest the week before.
“I didn’t think that was going to happen,” she said. “Particularly as I only come into that season late.
“I thought that invitation was a mistake and I was sitting through the night and not seeing my name on the count.
“Then I thought the Riddell one was for team of the year. I didn’t have anything prepared to speak.”
As well as playing in those two competitions, Shepherd plays for Melbourne University Lightning in the Victorian Netball League.
Shepherd said she thought the football-netball competition had helped her improve her game.
She said having an injury free year also helped her step her game up.
“A lot of the VNL girls are in the footy-netball anyway,” she said. “Ty is from the Blaze, you play against people that are champs players.
“You get good exposure.”
Shepherd was the only Tigers player in the netball team of the year. Wallan’s Maeve Donegan. Maddi Wallmeyer and Dakota Lister, Diggers Rest’s Leona Hristovska, Riddell’s Madison Brown, Coppinger, Romsey’s Emily Miles and Macedon’s Katie Clarke and Caitlyn Alifraco round out the team.
Clarke was named the coach of the team of the year.
