By Hayley Wildes
The Dandenong Stingrays and Gippsland Power kicked off their respective TAC Cup Girls seasons on the weekend.
The Stingrays battled hard against the Northern Knights. Despite falling behind early, a third term in which the Stingrays scored 2.2 and held the Knights scoreless, saw Dandenong trail by just three points heading into the final term.
Unfortunately for Dandenong, they were unable to keep up with their counterparts in the final term as the Knights scored three goals late in the fourth to run out 55-20 winners.
Although the result didn’t go their way, there were many positive signs for Dandenong. Shelley Heath and Lucy Cripps were exciting and showed their worth at TAC Cup level, whist Isabella Shannon proved dangerous around goals, scoring two majors.
Meanwhile, Jordyn Allen picked up where she left off after last season, with another dominant display.
With such a young and inexperienced team, the Gippsland Power went down to the Oakleigh Chargers, 8-75.
Despite the one-sided score line in their loss to the Chargers, there were plenty of positives for the Power, as Coach Scott Armour explained.
“We had about 11 debutants and about five playing their first serious game of football other than school football, so we had some really nervous girls.” Armour said postgame.
“We’ll take a lot of positives out of the game – the girls saw what sort of intensity they need to bring to a TAC game and it’s a big step up for some of them.”
Tyla Hanks and Nikia Webster were impressive for the Power, whilst Jasmine Ferguson showed plenty of promise in the ruck.
