Bloods primed for blockbuster ANZAC Day clash under lights at QEO

BY KIERAN ILES 

BENDIGO TIMES

WHEN Lauren Bowles signed on to coach South Bendigo last September, a couple of match-ups for the Bloods held instant appeal.

One was the chance to coach against her brother Jayden Cowling, currently in his eighth year at the helm of BFNL netball powerhouse Kangaroo Flat.

The other, the opportunity to go up against her former mentor at Kangaroo Flat Jannelle Hobbs – these days coaching Eaglehawk.

While the first sister-brother clash will have to wait until Indigenous round on May 31, the first meeting between Bowles and Hobbs will take place this Friday night under lights at the QEO.

The Bloods-Hawks clash will carry extra significance as a standalone ANZAC Day encounter, with both sides looking to bounce back from round two losses and advance their early season win-loss record to 2-1.

Bowles, who has made her way to South Bendigo following a successful playing-coach stint at Heathcore District club White Hills that yielded three A-grade premierships, is thrilled to be locking horns against Hobbs for the first time.

“It will be a bit of a blast from the past,” she said.

“Obviously, they have Chloe Langley in goals and Allira Holmes in defence and quite a few young players as well.

“I am sure Jannelle will mould them into a formidable opposition.

“After a big loss last week to Kangaroo Flat, they will no doubt be looking to rebound strongly.

“Early wins against the likes of Eaglehawk will be crucial, as they are the teams we will be fighting it out with for spots in the five.”

In their time together at Dower Park, the now rival coaches shared a premiership in 2014, with Hobbs as coach and Bowles as captain, albeit she missed the grand final win over Golden Square and a large chunk of the season with an ACL injury.

The Bloods boast an almost entirely new A-grade line-up from last season, highlighted by the arrival of star goal shooter Gabe Richards, after a pair of premiership wins with Elmore in 2022 and ’24.

Joining her are fellow Elmore dual-premiership star Andrea Wilson, goal attack Olivia Jones (Kerang), young gun midcourter Kyla Byrne (Castlemaine) and the returning Amy Leetham (Morrissey) and Tegan Elliston (both back from White Hills) as newcomers in the starting line-up.

Defensive mainstay Steph MacCallum (Goode) and young midcourter Ella Flavell are back from last year’s line-up.

After spending the past four seasons diligently trying to counter Richards’ influence as rivals in the HDFNL, Bowles is thrilled to have her on the same side at South Bendigo, describing her influence as ‘immeasurable’.

For Bowles, there is no underestimating the importance of Friday night’s clash against the Hawks.

“I said to myself pre-season that if we could get two out of three wins in the first three rounds, I’d be happy with how things have panned out,” she said.

“Obviously, we miss against Castlemaine (due to not fielding an A-grade team this season), but we have Sandhurst, Golden Square and Kangaroo Flat coming up, and Gabe is away those matches.

“That could be a tough run for us, but we’ll keep chipping away and hopefully, in the second half of the season, the margin against the likes of Gisborne will be less or reversed.

“There is a long way to go, but I think we are playing good enough netball at this stage in the season, as long we fine-tune a few things that we are working on week-by-week.”

Reflecting on last week’s loss to reigning premiers Gisborne, Bowles saw plenty of positives, but identified greater consistency across the four quarters as an area the Bloods would need to improve to challenge the league’s top sides.

“We knew Gisborne would have fair bit of fire in the belly to play some pretty great netball, after losing to Kangaroo Flat by 28 (goals) the week before,” she said.

“But I thought we got off to a really great start – we were only one down at quarter-time.

“There were just a few too many ebbs-and-flows throughout the game on our part.

“I thought we were fantastic defensively and won a lot of ball for the match, but unfortunately, we were just a little bit hit miss in our attack end.

“That’s an area of our game we need to work on – the consistency and getting more ball to Gabe. Not that we should be over-relying on her, but she is a great target.

“So, we need to make sure we are supplying a good amount of ball to make full use of her ability.”