WARRNAMBOOL Mermaids coach Louise Brown says a friendly draw will ensure she misses as little time with her Big V team as possible when she gives birth next month.
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The former WNBL player is expecting her second child in mid-April.
"I might miss a week of training. It's only one and a half hours on a Saturday night so surely I can get away for an hour and a half," she joked.
"We did request home games around that time so the draw has looked after us well.
"John (Wormald) is the assistant and he'll be right to take the reigns if anything goes pair shaped and I can't be there."
Brown took positives from the new-look Mermaids' first game of the 2019 season on Saturday night.
The Mermaids fell to Casey Cavaliers - the team they beat in last year's division one grand final series - in their maiden championship grade fixture 94-55.
They were without Jae Leddin (unavailable), Kat Aitken (concussion) and Grace Rodgers (ankle) and the bulk of their 2018 title-winning players, who have stepped aside this season.
"To be honest, the score didn't reflect the majority of the game," Brown said.
"We played with them until halfway through the third quarter.
"We were only 14 points down and then we ran out of legs."
Brown said there were positives to take out of the game.
"The kids, Juina Lual and Leah Bartlett, got good minutes and Ava Bishop hit the court for the first time," she said.
"We need to play them week in, week out so they gain a bit of confidence."
Olivia Krygger has returned to the Mermaids' roster this season and will add height in the guard rotations.
She scored seven points, reeled in three rebounds and had one assist, one steal and one block from 20 minutes on court.
"She is not playing every week with uni commitments and work and she also plays netball in Geelong," Brown said.
"She will play a lot of our away games. She did well considering she hadn't trained with us.
"I filmed stuff at training during the week and sent it to her via message.
"She's switched on and slotted straight in. She's a tall and long guard so she gives us a little bit of size in that position and she's hard worker."
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