The goal keeper believes young players including Matilda Fitzgerald, Ava Pierce, Ava Bishop and Ash Evans, can establish themselves in the top grade.

"It's nice to have new faces and keen girls pushing to play A grade," she said.

"A few juniors and A1 (players) have already played in the first three rounds and I think it's good doing this now so we know down the track what combinations work, rather than scrambling to try these things later in the year."

Fitzgerald and Bishop also play Big V basketball for Warrnambool Mermaids.

"A lot of the ones who play Mermaids and also play netball always go really well at netball," Cust said.

Warrnambool coach Raewyn Poumako echoed Cust's thoughts.

"We have other (junior) players to look at too," she said.

"We're at that stage where we want to give them a go, get them on the court on game day, which is very different to practice, and seeing how they go and give them experience so they can start to build.

"You need them - that's your future."

Warrnambool plays Portland at Deakin University on Saturday. Both sides have 1-2 win-loss ledgers.

Both Cust and Poumako are confident the Blues are tracking in the right direction.

"It's about getting used to different combinations and to be honest I think every year we're sluggish at the start and take a couple of games to find our feet," Cust said.

"Once the team settles then we can work on game stuff and strategies.

"We've had a lot of the ball across the court; we're probably just not looking after it enough.

"And our accuracy has probably been off as well."

Poumako said they were playing the long game.

"We've had a couple of good weeks of training and really working through the basics with what we're doing on court, just one thing at a time, and picking up little improvements," she said.

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