Some thoughts from the first two games: high penalty counts across the board, looks like players might be struggling to adjust back into the proper season. Looks like super shot accuracy might be steadily improving too.
Thunderbirds: their entire starting lineup were excellent, I couldn’t pick a highlight. And now they’ve got the license to shoot long? They’ll be hard to beat. Not much else to say about them!
Vixens: Caris was very good in her first game, more disruption and impact than Ellis could provide. Eddy is also in amazing form, as many others have pointed out. Graham was great, but sometimes got stuck running up and down the baseline without actually being an option. Austin needs to stop pleading to the umpires.
Lightning: Reynolds can’t seriously expect us to think Fretwell spending 60 minutes in GS is purely tactical, can she? Obviously Steph is nearing the end of her incredible career and we all know she’s had some knee problems, but it’s great to see her out there as Lightning clearly need her- I’m surprised the club didn’t acknowledge that, but they’re not really known for being forthcoming. Batcheldor had an excellent game, shooting the bulk of the goals while running out in GA. Disappointing to see whatever is happening to Koenen’s form, and I’m concerned about Hinchliffe becoming increasingly penalised after a decently clean year last season.Watson is as good as ever, unsurprisingly.
Mavericks: Parmenter was huge defensively and was constantly drawing attention to herself, both positively and negatively. She really needs to be more disciplined though. When Fraser was in C, absolutely nobody was coming to get the centre pass receive; it looked like Lightning had about three extra players! They just seem to have no rhythm as a team, which is understandable with Glasgow coming back, but they need to sort out their CPR and SPR. Agree with the comments that Palavi and Glasgow are too similar to play together at this stage, and the feeders seemed terrified of feeding Jok despite how reliable she is.
