WESTERNS Football Netball Club’s netball structure will take on a different look in the 2024 South West District Netball League season, with the appointment of co-coaches Lisa Carr and Lee-Anne Nelson for the upcoming season.

Carr and Nelson will work together to coach both the A grade and A reserve side at Westerns, with Carr saying it gives them an opportunity to utilise the depth they have on offer at the club.

“It just gives us a lot more time to look at the players and how they’re performing, and it means myself and Lee-Anne have more time to discuss what we’re doing in attack and defence,” Carr said.

“We clearly have a lot of depth in our senior netball with A res, B and C grade all having had lots of success, but we want to see that give our A grade side a boost.”

Carr was at the helm of the Roos’ A grade side in a solo capacity last season, with Nelson serving as team manager, but Carr said her new partner’s expertise was a necessary addition to the fold.

“She’s an absolute legend and she has a really good netball mind, her input was absolutely warranted,” Carr said.

“I think we’ll work really well together, it probably gives us some more time to deal with each player and group of players, when we’re able to have two voices in the huddle it makes it a lot easier to get all the information across.”

As for what Carr hopes to achieve, she said making finals is the top priority for the A grade side even at this early stage.

“There’s obviously still a long way to go in the process of figuring out how everything fits together, but I think we should definitely have our sights set on a finals berth, and we’ll reassess from there later down the line,” she said.

“I want us to have a strong core group of players to lead us forward and help us continue having a really welcoming environment at Westerns.

“I want to encourage the younger players we have to really push themselves towards the top level.”

Carr said the next step in the process for her is finalising the coaching positions for the rest of the netball teams.

“We’re hoping to have that done sometime this week, and from there we’ll be looking at some preseason in early January,” she said.

“We want to get our team selection done early so we can get the players into their roles and used to playing with one another as early as possible.”