For a long-suffering B.A Road Services Talbot Hawks A grade netball supporter, this must be the ride of a lifetime at the moment.
Fifteen years since they had even made a finals series, a longer wait — 30 years, in fact — since they had a won a final, the 1994 A grade premiership, no less, was brought to an end on Sunday with a 12-goal victory over Maldon at Carisbrook Recreation Reserve.
Hawks supporters had to wait a little longer than usual on Sunday on top of that 30-year wait, with a lightning delay ensuring that both teams would have to cool their jets for another hour.
Like so many times across the journey, this wasn’t ever going to be a normal win — indeed, the game was called off with six minutes to go thanks to a second lightning delay.
It didn’t bother an enormous travelling crowd, both from Talbot and also the adoring supporters of the Learmonth Football Netball Club who has followed ex-player Eleisha Phelps’ fairytale journey as first-year playing-coach.
The result means a semi final meeting against the Maryborough Giants await — an intriguing clash, given the two teams were separated by one goal just two weeks ago.
Talbot showed no signs of nerve, with an enormous whitewash of crowd support helping guide them to a strong 14-7 start.
The intercept game of Isabelle Rustman and Stella Roche was on point, while the Hawks’ ball movement across the midcourt was crafty enough to allow Dom Roche to score from any position inside the goal circle.
The Hawks continued to hold their nerve in the second quarter, answering every Maldon challenge to score 12 goals to 10, leading 26-17 at the main break.
Maldon kept asking questions throughout the third term, but in an accomplished performance, the Hawks had everything in reserve to keep their noses in front, scoring 11 goals to 10 to assume a 37-27 lead at the final change.
Although the final quarter was shortened dramatically, the Hawks had done enough in the time they needed to get it done, scoring seven goals to five to get it done.
Dom had a brilliant outing, scoring 39 of the Hawks’ goals.
For Maldon, who now finish off what has been a much-improved season, Katelyn Cutlack scored 22 goals, while Mackenzi Shepherd scored seven goals.
For Phelps, this was an emotional time.
“I don’t think I can feel anything yet. I’m just so happy with the result,” she said.
“The girls have worked so hard from pre-season all throughout, and have worked harder and harder as the season’s gone on, and chipped away at it. The way that they played was amazing and hopefully we can do it again next week.
“It means so much to so many around the club, and not just the players and football players and the club members, it means a lot to the past players to see something like this, and the people that are part of the club who support us each week. They can get us over the line too, not just the players and the hard work.”
Phelps says there’s been a lot of reward for the club that is starting to reap the rewards.
“It’s been hard work, but the girls make it so much easier because they are motivated and they want to work hard to win games. It’s made my job a lot easier, and it’s rewarding to see how hard they have worked, put it out on the court and see it on the scoreboard too,” she said.
“To win games, you have to score more than 10 goals a quarter, really, so that’s what we aimed for and that’s what we got.”
Phelps, and her club, are shooting for the stars.
“It’s exciting to come up against the Giants, since we had a big performance against them in the last round, and I’m hoping the girls can get us over the line again next week,” she said.