Cats tormented by Demons in big loss

LBU coach Stacy Fiske acknowledged White Hills was one of the top sides in the league and admitted his side was “taught a very big lesson”.

“White Hills are a very good unit and we saw that first-hand (on Saturday),” he said.

“They were slick in the way they moved the ball, slick in the way they set up and their ability to hurt us from our turnovers was second to none. They were fantastic with the ball.

“We learnt a lot and got taught a very big lesson about how good some of these teams can be.”

While the Demons were able to carve up LBU with their ball movement, the Cats also let themselves down in a number of areas, Fiske said, particularly in making the most of their forays forward.

“You don't take any credit away from White Hills, they played a very good brand of footy,” he said.

“(But) throughout the course of the first half, probably not so much the second half, there was very similar inside 50s.

“Our ability to hit targets and put scoreboard pressure on wasn't at the standard we needed it to be, and at the other end they were able to do that.

“At the end of the day that’s probably what the situation was. We had plenty of the ball, but our ability to actually hold on to it and get a score on the board is the thing that hurt us.”

Now in his second season at the Cats, Fiske said there were still plenty of moments both as a team and individually that he could highlight from the game as positives.

“It’s definitely those kind of moments when the results become pretty large when it comes to the actual score, you’ve got to look for positives and look for the things that we do really well,” he said.

“I think there was definitely some moments where we did move the ball well, when we did actually change lines and we actually moved the ball instead of kicking down the line and we were able to break through a little bit of their defensive structure.

“But outside of that they had a really good hold on the game.”

Fiske praised the work of Bowden Stone, who was perhaps the best contributor wearing the hoops on Saturday, while Joseph Wolfe and Tyler Phillips also earned plaudits for their roles across half-back and in the ruck respectively.

The Cats play Huntly next week before they have the bye, with Fiske keen to enter the week off with an even record.

"We've got the bye after Huntly, so what we want to do is go in 2-2,” he said.

“If we can level that up and have two wins and two losses, that’s not a bad start for the year. That’s where our focus is.

“There’s obviously some key points that we want to get a little bit better at, over the next sort of seven days … and try to bounce back after a really tough couple of weeks.

“We haven’t lost faith in the way we play footy, we’ve just come up against some really good opponents, and they showed us we’ve got a little bit of work to do.”

HDNL

Lockington-Bamawm United endured its third consecutive loss to start the Heathcote District netball league season, falling 25-56 to White Hills.

The Cats slumped to 3-0 following the loss, although they will be presented with their best opportunity yet to get on the board next week.

LBU will face Huntly, the only side below it on the ladder, who also remains winless with two losses and a bye.