HALF of Winchelsea's A-Grade netball premiership team, plus its championship-winning coach, have joined GFL club Newtown & Chilwell.
The Eagles have swooped on elite Winchelsea quartet Julia Knott, Amy Wirth, Nat Tommasini and Renee Pilkington and the Blues' three-time premiership coach Jason Woolley.
The talented group, who travel from Melbourne, are somewhat of a package deal in that they stick together if they move between clubs.
They had planned to take some time out of the game after finishing up at the Blues last season, before an opportunity emerged around the Christmas-New Year period to play together at the Eagles.
The Eagles have also secured two stars from GDFL runner-up Werribee Centrals - Danni Stewart and Casey Price - as they set their sights on finals.
"Originally I was going to take a year off - it had been five years at Winch and three flags in a row," said Woolley, who was on rolling one-year contracts at the Blues.
"A lot of it came down to travel from Melbourne to Winchelsea and getting down there to training on a Thursday night, which was putting a lot of pressure on at work."
Woolley will share the coaching duties at Newtown & Chilwell with Terry Corry. Woolley will coach the B-Grade and Corry will take the reins of the A-Grade.
"At the end of last season, the girls were going to take some time off as well, but once you have that break, the girls explored the idea of starting up again and then there was a connection with Newtown," Woolley said.
Winchelsea will now start the season with a completely new-look A-Grade side after the club lost a further two players - Hayley Rhook and Hayley McCallum - who have moved from the area. to Queensland and Hayley McCallum to Bendigo.
Winchelsea president Daniel Greskie said netball numbers were otherwise strong, adding that the club would have an emphasis on unearthing new talent.
Long-time club stalwart Angie Mawson is coach. this season.
"We knew the girls were travelling down together, so the day one left we thought they'd probably all leave together," he said.
"We've got a lot of juniors coming through who will play this year. We'll give our girls plenty of chances."
Last Modified on 20/11/2013 20:24
