With the sun beating down at Deakin Reserve on Sunday afternoon, Euroa ensured there is no longer any doubt about it – the Magpies are the benchmark in the Goulburn Valley League A grade netball competition.
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Appearing in a fourth straight grand final, this time against Mooroopna, a side on their very first trip to the A grade decider, the Magpies at times looked dominant, then vulnerable, before powering away to a 38-32 victory in the final term, sealing a second top-flight flag from the past three seasons to confirm their status as the undisputed top dogs.
“Honestly, it's just incredible, we worked so hard,” an emotional coach Ellie Warnock said after the final whistle.
“I’m so proud of the girls, we were just so determined, we told ourselves we were not losing today, and we were really prepared for it.
“It was nice to do it the easy way this time, well, not the easy way, but getting that week off and coming straight into the granny was really nice and something different for us.
“Yeah, it’s just amazing.”
It was a shaky start to the contest from Euroa, though, as Mooroopna settled quickly to take the first break of the contest, with Ashley Lancaster looking on song early and the midcourt trio of Rhani Hendy, Asha Gray and Bree Hanslow heaping the pressure upon the Magpies to take a 4-2 lead.
Euroa looked flat footed early and made plenty of errors, both forced and unforced, but soon found a bit more of a rhythm and found even footing across the court before long, with both Warnock and Tylah Marchbank shutting down the Cats’ offence, while in the middle third Sophie Owen got to work, ensuring Mooroopna’s movement was laboured.
Mia Sudomirski and Bec Colwell formed a formidable partnership in the shooting circle for Euroa, too, the former feeding the latter nicely as Colwell caught firing, sinking all nine of her side’s first-quarter goals as the Magpies edged ahead by the first break, up 9-8.
It would be in the second term that the game was won, though, as Euroa launched a vicious assault.
Across every third the Pies were dominant, deploying a slow and deliberate build-up when attacking while their relentless harassment when the Cats had the ball made it almost impossible for Mooroopna to find a clean pass.
It was utter dominance, and when the half time buzzer sounded, it looked to be all she wrote, with the Magpies up 21-13 and showing no signs of slowing down.
The Cats had a few tricks in their bag, yet, though, and coach Di Hanslow pulled perhaps the biggest of them, with 15-year-old Layla Ratcliffe being pushed from goal attack to goal shooter among the many changes that were swung.
It proved a masterstroke.
Kept quiet in the second term at goal attack, Ratcliffe roared to life in the third at goal shooter, feasting on the quick ball movement that came her way as the new-look Cats found an energy reserve.
The Magpies, having dominated in the second term, simply stopped running, and despite looking dead and buried, Mooroopna pounced in the premiership quarter, winning turnover after turnover and twice pulling back breaks, with Ratcliffe’s hot hand pouring in 10 of her side’s 11 goals for the quarter.
In defence, Caitlin McLachlan and Lancaster -switching into goal keeper - denied a dominant Colwell, restricting Euroa to just five goals for the term, cutting the deficit to two as they went into the final change down 24-26, and looking like they were going run right over the top of the Magpies.
But like a champion boxer that had been knocked down, the Pies got up off the canvas and delivered a knockout blow of their own in the fourth.
“The message at three-quarter time was that pressure is a privilege,” Warnock said.
“I said to the girls ‘you've earned that feeling to feel like you're playing for something, and that's the pressure, it means that you're playing for something that matters.’
“That was really important to us, to go out there and just give it our all.
“Don't play for the occasion, play for the next ball, and that's what we did in the last quarter.”
Despite a very vocal contingent of Mooroopna fans, Euroa steadied brilliantly in the last, going goal-for-goal with the Cats despite all the momentum being with their opponent, before seizing their opportunities at the death, extending the lead from 32-30 to 38-30 with a 6-0 run in the dying stages that all but killed off the Cats’ challenge.
Warnock was inspirational for her Magpies outfit, standing up in the big moments to help her side across the line, and was recognised by the umpires with the best on court medal after helping restrict Mooroopna to its lowest score of the season.
“Honestly it is a team effort,” she said.
“But playing with Tylah Marchbank just makes your job so easy, she’s an incredible defender.
“Honestly I can’t thank the girls enough, I think they’re the ones that got me this.”
It continues a dominant stretch from the Magpies in the top flight, having now contested each of the past four grand finals and winning half of them, with Warnock heading what is a special group down at Memorial Oval.
She was speechless when asked how to sum up what her side has achieved, though cited the culture off the court as a big factor in their success on it.
“I have no words, honestly,” she said.
“It’s just incredible.
“We’ve worked so hard for it like I said, and we keep building every single year.
“Everyone just does it for each other, and it’s a real team effort.
“We’re such good mates off the court, we really just build each other up and do it all for each other.”