UPWEY – TECOMA WOMENS SEASON REVIEW

By Alyce Collett

The 2019 Eastern Region Women’s season has brought contrasting seasons for the two teams from Upwey Tecoma.

Firstly, their Division One side had a pretty good season. They started the season off very strongly, with comfortable wins against Upper Ferntree Gully, Heathmont and Knox. They then wobbled, losing the next two, before bouncing back with a big win over Norwood after having the bye. 

The second half of the season started out with a loss to Upper Ferntree Gully before they bounced back with a big win over Heathmont. 

This was followed by a further four wins on the trot, against Knox, South Croydon, Waverley Blues and East Ringwood. They warmed up for finals with a draw against Norwood. 

The Tigers finished 3rd on the ladder, which meant a meeting in the first week of the finals against East Ringwood. They comfortably beat the Roos before falling just short the following week against eventual premiers South Croydon.

One trend from the beginning of the year that didn’t fully continue into the second half of the year was the big margins. Up until round seven, the average winning margin was 52.5 points, while the average losing margin was 63.5 points. 

The big wins continued, but the big losses didn’t. The ledger for the last seven Home and Away matches is five wins, one loss and one draw. The loss was only 19 points, while the average winning margin was 50.8 points.

On an individual note, Alexandria Bantock was the leading goal kicker for the Division One side, with an end of season tally of 16 goals. 

Meanwhile, things didn’t improve for the Outer East Division Team. 

They finished dead last on the ladder, two games behind Belgrave. They didn’t add to their one win for the rest of the season, and despite officially not being completely out of the finals race until a few weeks before the end of the season, they were never really in it.

Scoring was an issue for them all season. This was noted in the mid season review, but unfortunately for the Tigers things didn’t improve. They did manage to put a score of 62 on the board against Belgrave, but that was their top score of the season, and in the second half of the season their top score was 18. 

That is something they will definitely need to improve in the off season in order to have any hope of moving up the ladder next season. Having said that, it’s an incredible effort for the club to have multiple female sides, and the development the girls made over the course of the season will no doubt have them in good stead for 2020.