On grand final day 12 months ago, Echuca fell short of a B grade Goulburn Valley league netball premiership by the smallest of possible margins.
Nearly 12 months to the day, a two-goal win the preliminary final has sent the B grade side back to the big dance against Euroa.
B grade co-coach Karlie Stevens said her team were excited to make a point of their progress throughout 2019.
“The girls can't wait to get out there,” she said.
“We've made a lot of improvement throughout the season this year, played some really good netball at stages and we are really excited to put that on show on Sunday and hopefully get a flag for the club.”
While the heartache of the 2018 loss still burns for some of the players on the team, and the team has not shied away from the lessons it can teach them.
“It has been spoken about at stages,” she said.
“We have a few players in this group who were a part of the loss, so it does come up at times. But we also have a lot of new faces, including a few who have never played in a grand final.
“We take a bit more out of what happened last week with A grade going down in such a tight contest. They're hard lessons, it's difficult for anyone to go through losses like that, but it does show us what can happen and what we want to avoid.”
As well as the difficulty of losses, the team is taking a lot from parts of their own game, namely going the long way through finals to make it to the big dance.
“I actually think it's the best way to go into a grand final,” she said.
“You are prepared for everything that is going to come at you. We've know throughout this finals series that we would have to play our best game every week if we were going to continue advancing, so we are now in a position where we really know what is expected of us if we are going to get the win.”
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