And while Tongala may be the former ahead of its Murray League A-grade final with Nathalia on Saturday, the Blues possess the quiet confidence that they can throw form out the window, slay Nathalia, and bring home the flag.
“We are good enough and I think the girls have real belief now,” coach Abby Pettifer said.
“They know that we’re really meshing at the right time of the season.
“We were all new playing together and it takes a little bit to get there.
“(We) might be a champion team on paper, but you need to make sure that you can actually work together.”
Pettifer flagged from day one that there would be need for experimentation after bringing marquee signings Hollie Reid and Chicky Vick, among others, into an already stacked Blues side, a team with much of the same DNA as the one that won the 2023 flag and then reached back to back preliminary finals.
The coach of those successes, Grace Hammond, remained with the squad as a valuable midcourter and on-court leader, and goaling talisman Milly Brock had also rejoined the A-grade squad after battling life-threatening autoimmune encephalitis for the first half of 2025.
Those growing pains were laid bare in round one, when Tonny was drawn against its now grand final opponent on the opening day, and Nathalia cruised to victory by 20 goals.
But a second clash showed the progress the Blues had made, with that deficit more than halved to nine on June 6, when the sides met again.
“As a math teacher, when you do the math, we cut it by 11, if we can cut it by another 11 after playing again, that’s two up,” Pettifer said.
“Anything can happen, the girls are in a good mindset, and we are out to have a crack and just to do our best.
“Our aim was to make the grand final, it is a big aim, and we’ve done that, and gone one better than last year.”
Nathalia’s Jane Cook will be a threat in goal shooter, the Purples’ only loss of the year coming with the league’s second leading goaler not present.
“Our aim is just to beat everyone else on the court and not worry too much about Jane in goal shooter,” Pettifer said.
“Obviously she’s the biggest target in the league and our aim is just to make sure that we’re doing our job everywhere because in the end we’re going to get the same amount of centre passes as they do.
“That’s always going to be even, so we just need to convert and hopefully the girls can work hard, show their fitness and we can pick up a few of those intercepts before they even get down to the goal ring.”
With five netball sides making a grand final, the Blues supporters are sure to be out in force to support their top grade hopes.
Asking anyone around the netball program, cohesion, camaraderie and a buy in mentality form a constant theme as keys to the club’s success.
“We just want to get out there and play our style of netball, and we want to walk off the court proud of what we can achieve and proud that we've got a group of very talented local girls from our local area that have come out to play for their club and their town,” Pettifer said.
“(We’re) just trying to keep positive and not worry too much about their record.
“We're the ones to get closest to them when Jane was playing, they lost that one game without her (but) not worrying about their players and worrying about our own game is what we're going to take into the game this weekend.”
The A-grade grand final will conclude the action on the netball courts on Saturday, and is scheduled for 2pm.
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