The Seymour A-grade netball coach continued her breakout season on Sunday in the Vixens’ tense 58-54 victory over the Sunshine Coast Lightning at USC Stadium.
McDonald, who has been playing in the wing attack position, played brilliantly in the second half to help the Vixens wrap up a dominant regular season and the minor premiership.
The gun midcourter has played valuable minutes for the Super Netball premiership favourites while Watson recovers from an ankle injury.
Watson returned to the line-up for the final round clash but was cautiously monitored and only played the opening half - which paved the way for McDonald's superb input.
McDonald - a premiership coach with Seymour - finished the game with 13 assists and 20 feeds.
“She’s been doing awesome,” Watson said of McDonald.
“I love her confidence just to let the ball go into MJ (Mwai Kumwenda) - she’s quite sharp on her movements as well - so they’ve been working really hard (on feeding) at training, so it’s nothing new to us and I think she did a great job.”
It was the fourth Super Netball appearance by McDonald since she made her debut earlier in the season.
The Vixens now turn their attention to this weekend's major semi-final clash against their weekend opponents - the Lightning.
“It’s going to be pretty similar this week training-wise,” Watson said.
“There’s four teams left now - we know the top four, (and) we know who’s playing who.
“We’ll be back here (at USC Stadium) so it’s kind of been a good practice run for us with the travel down on the bus, what time we had to leave, all that kind of thing, it was a good test run for next week.”
The semi-final match will take place at 1 pm on Saturday afternoon.
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