Jaegers Say They'll Fight To The Bitter End
Newcastle Herald
Monday June 25, 2007
THE Hunter Jaegers' hopes of featuring in a national netball league finals series appear slim after their fifth loss in a row on Friday night, but captain and inaugural Jaeger Jane Menzies knows there is still plenty to play for.
The Jaegers won three of their first five games of the season to be among the early competition pacesetters.But five successive losses, all on the road, have them in sixth spot with six points and four points behind the fourth-placed Queensland Firebirds (10 points).The Firebirds remain the only semi-final contenders the Jaegers are likely to be able to catch with four rounds remaining.But the Jaegers are still in a position to equal the club's best effort of seven wins in a season, which they achieved in 2004.The Jaegers will be no more next year when the national league, which is in its 11th season, will be replaced by a trans-Tasman series."We still have things we want to push through until the end of the year," Menzies said."There's always the danger when finals start to look more difficult that you might peter out. But we've all made that commitment to one another that we're not here to play a few games and do all right, we want to play the last few games in the Jaegers uniform and do ourselves and do Newcastle really proud."The Jaegers, who lost 63-54 to the Melbourne Kestrels in Sydney on Friday night, return home this weekend to host the fifth-placed Adelaide Thunderbirds (eight points).It will be the penultimate home game of the season for the Jaegers, and the second-last time Novocastrians will get to see their team in flight in Newcastle."I love playing at home, all of the girls do, because we have such amazing support. It's going to be good to be back home after a pretty hard slog with the last five games all on the road," Menzies said. Points: Phoenix 18, Kestrels 14, Swifts 14, Firebirds 10, Thunderbirds 8, Jaegers 6, Orioles 6, Darters 2.
© 2007 Newcastle Herald
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