The future is looking bright for Woodend- Hesket Netball Club in the Riddell District Netball League.
Since its 10th-place finish last year, the club has had a massive off-season, setting up a platform for years to come.
First step was to appoint former player Kellie Duff as netball co-ordinator.
“They approached me to take on the role,” Duff said. “I have two girls currently playing in the junior club and I’ve been head coach and netball co-ordinator at the juniors for a couple of years.”
Duff said she had taken on the co-ordinator’s role at the senior club as a challenge.
“There are a lot of exciting opportunities and, although I’m not expecting miracles overnight, I think some really positive changes will be obvious early in the season.”
Duff’s experience with the juniors will be vital as the club moves forward.
“Our junior and senior clubs are separate identities and play at different venues in Woodend,” she said.
“This presents some pathway issues, but I think we can address this through my over-arching roles at both clubs.
“We’ve lost some great players to neighbouring clubs in the past few years. One of our aims is to encourage our fantastic juniors to feed through into the senior sides and, hopefully, see a real positive flow-on from improving this pathway”.
As well as appointing Duff, the club has announced its other coaches: Lisa Johnstone will coach the B-grade side, Anne-Louise Lindner the under-19s, and Michelle Giddings will lead the C-graders.
The club has also appointed Michael Fearn as a fitness coach.
“The coaches we’ve appointed for the under-19s, C and B grades have a great deal of playing and coaching experience,” Duff said.
“We’ve already achieved many positive changes but are just missing this one final A-grade head coach position. A coach who’s interested in helping us rebuild and can work with our coaching team to develop our players would be a massive plus.”
The club is still after players across the board.
“We have really strong numbers in the 19s age group and, since my appointment, six past players have come back to the club. It’s a positive trend we want to see continue,” Duff said. “We think there are some really good opportunities for players who were on the cusp of A-grade last year getting a chance to step up if we think they’re ready.
“We would love to attract some more A-grade-quality players as we don’t want to place too much pressure on younger players.”
