Tungamah was crowned C-reserve premier after defeating Waaia.
Photo by
Liam Nash
Tungamah picked the perfect time to go full throttle on Saturday.
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The Bears went bang on grand final day, shredding Waaia 30-16 to seize the Picola District Netball League C-reserve premiership at Deniliquin Memorial Park.
On league form alone, there was nothing to split the two sides.
Tungamah edged Waaia on percentage alone, with both sides finishing the home and away campaign on 58 points with identical 14-1-1 records.
But from the jump, the Bears looked like a side with unfinished business.
Their midcourt was running like a V8 on the tarmac, the Bears’ defence a brick wall with claws.
Waaia came to play, but every time the Bombers tried to lift off they ran into a maroon-and-gold blockade.
By quarter-time the scoreboard already had a whiff of inevitability about it.
Tungamah owned the ball, owned the tempo and, by the end, owned the grand final a shiny bit of silverware to boot.
“That’s probably one of our better performances of the year,” coach Sandy Dickie said.
“There’s 14 of us in this side and 14 of us got us to that premiership. We just had to fire today, and today we did.”
Dickie was unsurprisingly in high spirits at the final hooter, but there was little time to savour the win as she was off to umpire the next game.
But during the hour beforehand, she - like every single one of the Bears - was locked into the task at hand.
Best-on-court defender Felicity Irvine was the spark plug and the steady hand all at once.
She threaded passes, fending off Waaia attacks and marshalled her defensive end while around her, the midcourt ran rings picked Bombers’ pockets to fuel the attacking waves.
Every rotation clicked. Every substitute slotted in. Tungamah rolled through the gears and Waaia simply couldn’t keep up.
“I’ve got the best attack in the league, best defence in the league,” Dickie said.
“And today they showed it.”
By the final quarter Tungamah’s bench was on its feet, the maroon-and-gold faithful drowning out the Bombers’ cheers as the score ballooned.
Fittingly, it was a 14 goal win for a teflon-tight group of 14 Tungamah players, and when it came time to sign off on the year, Dickie summed up the journey with a grin.
“We’ve had a ball. We all came back together to help someone out, and we’ve had fun and we’ve won,” she said.
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