ANA 2024: Royals Saints roar to A1 title three-peat after holding out determined Bullets in tense grand final

Royals Saints 1’s Albany Netball Association A1 premiership three-peat and fifth title in eight years is an entire club reward, according to coach Carly Szczecinski after her side’s stirring win over Bullets 1. The Saints were composed in frantic situations and under immense pressure from their opponents in a high-octane grand final on Saturday afternoon. However, the Saints’ two stars at either end of the court with sharpshooter Jazelle Foggin and defensive pillar Narelle Humphries proved the difference between the two sides. The pair were named joint winners of the Lucille Holt Memorial Award for their extremely influential games in the 53-46 triumph. Humphries was enormous against Bullets star shooter Emily Gadean, with ravenous defence forcing highly contested shots and resulting in turnovers while at the other end Foggin shot the lights out in the stellar seven-goal victory. Szczecinski said the victory was a true celebration of the club, which has nurtured talented players consistently in its decorated history. “It’s just a testament to the depth we’ve had in our club all these years and the hard work other coaches have done during that time to keep producing really quality athletes and a really good bunch of girls as well,” she said. “So we’ve been very fortunate with some of the amazing players who we’ve had to get us into this position.” Szczecinski identified Humphries and Foggin as the difference but said her experienced unit adapted well to the extraordinary grand final pressure. “Narelle (Humphries) is a big game player, she’s supremely talented and has a very important ability to be able to read when we need something big and produce it,” she said. “Jazz (Foggin), who is only 20, played like she’d been playing in A1 grand finals for 15 years, so calm and nailed goals when she needed to, and weathered a very physical opponent. “Claire (Holliday) is an ex-Michelle Parsons winner, but (Foggin) took it to her psychically all game and shot beautifully. “The third quarter, everyone knows, is most important so we had to weather that storm, and they did that maturely and I suppose that’s a bit of experience that some of them have to be able to just keep calm.” Despite the Saints’ poise, the Bullets failed to surrender, remaining in touching distance for the entire game and leading at the first change. It was an old-fashioned shootout with Gadean missing just one of her 13 shots in the opener while Foggin hit 12 of her first 13 shots, the rivals matching each other the entire encounter with 40 goals each. Bullets were slow and calculated with their ball movement, starting with rebounding defender Rachel Adams at goal defender, and led by a single goal at the opening break. Foggin continued her impressive shooting form in the second with 10 straight goals while Humphries really began to impose herself on the game. The athletic defender was pivotal in restricting Gadean’s influence, the shooter managing just nine goals from her 15 attempts as the Saints snatched a four-goal lead by the main break. Saints captain Summer Stirling stood up in the hectic third quarter as her side led by as much as eight goals before a hot final minute from Gadean reduced the margin back to five. With their grand final dreams hanging by a thread, Bullets had every answer for the Saints as they traded blows for most of the last but Foggin flexed her muscles again hitting nine straight goals to help her side claw to a memorable victory. Rebecca Goodliffe provided plenty all game at wing attack for the Saints and Sophie Loveridge was a livewire at centre. Holliday was tasked with defending Foggin and was brilliant in passages while Jo-anne Scott was prolific at wing attack with stints at goal attack with a busy Courtney Gardner. Bullets coach Phil Dawson conceded his side did not handle the Saints’ pressure well enough. “I think we got away from our processes. We had things in place that we were doing, and then we stopped and we panicked a bit, “ he said. “We lost control of the ball, and we didn’t get our momentum back. “Our young ones didn’t cope as well as I think they would have liked to. “We always have the potential and we were five goals up at on one stage but we gave it back (to Royals).”