By Barry Rollings
Navy prevented a clean-sweep by Army in the ACT Inter-Service Netball Championships in Canberra by winning the mixed final on July 25.
After two triumphs, it seemed likely the combined might of Army’s men and women might prove too tough for Navy in the mixed final but that was not the case.
In the end Army had no counter to Navy’s twin towers, goal attack SMN James Bailey and goalkeeper MIDN Jude Power. SMN Bailey’s elusive play, clever positioning and accurate shooting for goal was matched at the other end of the court by MIDN Power, who frustrated many of Army’s attacking sorties.
The mixed final was a dour affair in which Navy battle hard to maintain the early lead it had established.
Navy led 6-4, 10-7 and 14-12 at each of the changes before producing a strong last quarter that Army could not match. Navy outscored Army 7-1 in the final term for a convincing 21-13 victory.
Earlier, the smart teamwork and accurate passing of Army proved too much for Navy in the women’s final, which Army won 28-13.
Air Force provided stiff competition for Army (with Air Force and Navy personnel making up the numbers) in the men’s final and it led 6-5 at half-time before Army prevailed in the second half to win 19-13.
In the women’s and mixed competitions, SMN Rhianna Jones dominated the centre court with her attacking moves, SBLT Kate Monorary proved too strong for many opposition goalies and PO Elizabeth Smith was one of the key accurate shooters for the Navy.
In the men’s and mixed competition, dominating male players were tall MIDN Jude Power, who proved strong in defence and also dominated the goal circle in attack, and LS Alex Lehay, who proved too quick for many opposition centre court players.
About 60 players in nine teams contested the titles, which included Service personnel from Wagga and Nowra.
“It has been a very smoothly-run competition, with the Services well represented across the board in both the men’s and women’s competitions, ACT netball representative LT Paula Vetter said.
“It has been a good day to promote netball within the ADF community.
“The standard has been very high, surprisingly so in the mixed competition, while the women’s competition also produced a good standard.”
At the end of the day teams were selected to represent the ACT at the ADF Netball Championships in Perth from October 22-28.
From there, ACT representatives will be vying for selection in the ADF representative teams to contest the Arafura Games in Darwin in May next year.
