Reigning netball premiers too strong as leader shines in new position

Roosters co-captain Carly Watson, who usually plays goal-defence, starred in wing-defence as the reigning open-grade netball premiers defeated the Eagles 60-36 in round one of the Hampden league.

"I thought Carly Watson today was fantastic and playing in a position that she's not necessarily always in, I thought she did a huge amount of work to dictate and deny off the first and second phase of our defence," Roosters coach Will Jamison told The Standard of Watson.

"But then I also thought her attacking game as well was second to none."

Looking forward, the Roosters mentor said he was excited about the variety of positional options at his disposal, particularly in defence.

Star goal-attack recruit Emma Buwalda was also one of the Roosters' best in her second game for the club, shooting 29 goals.

Teammate Meg Carlin, also an off-season recruit, scored 31 goals as goal-shooter.

Jamison praised the performance of the attacking end which is still without shooter Hollie Phillips following eye surgery.

The club is taking a precautionary approach to Phillips' return.

"I think that connection was a lot stronger than last week," he said.

"We did do a lot of work on that at training this week and I think there's still a significant amount that we can improve in that attacking end but there was some really great moments throughout the game"

Overall, the Roosters coach was pleased with his side's showing and believed it was an improvement on its Good Friday win against Koroit.

"I thought today was really positive," he said.

"There were definitely some areas of our game that we were disappointed with last week and I thought we did a really good job of correcting a lot of those today.

"The team stuck to those areas of focus that we really wanted to make a priority."

Kate O'Meara and Maddison Vardy impressed for the Eagles in coach Mandy Van Rooy's first game in charge.

The side was without Matilda Sewell (Warrnambool Mermaids basketball) and Ash Ferguson (away).

"They're an amazing team, so it's hard to come up against South first game," Van Rooy said of the result.

"We also had a couple of players out unfortunately which means it kind of put our balance out a little bit but I think for the first half we did well, we stuck with them but obviously that's the class of South, they just ran over the top of us in that last half and we couldn't quite keep up."

Van Rooy noted there were a number of positives for her team despite the loss.

"I think there were combinations that we tried that we probably didn't expect to have to try," she said.

"I think putting Vic (Grundy) into goalkeeper when she's normally shooter, I thought she did really well down there.

"We brought Indi Sewell on into wing-defence for her first senior game and she did such a great job. And I think our attacking end, it's brand new so there's a lot of tweaks there that we need to work on but it was good."

Meanwhile, Portland and Port Fairy played out an entertaining 50-50 draw in their clash at Hanlon Park.

Attacker Heidi Jones (33 goals) was named the Tigers' best player while goal-attack recruit Emma Stacey (19 goals) was named the Seagulls' equivalent.

In the other fixtures, Cobden defeated Hamilton Kangaroos 62-29 and Terang Mortlake triumphed 53-44 against Camperdown.