THE Temora Kangaroos believe they have already exceeded their initial expectations after locking down the double chance in Farrer League netball finals with a comprehensive 70-42 win over North Wagga on Saturday.
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The victory locks down a top three berth with one regular season round remaining, something coach Jess Pike didn't envisage guiding one of the competition's youngest sides.
Teen shooters Abbey Reinhold and Halle Derrick were again superb in the dismantling of the fourth-placed Saints, who could have closed to within two points of the Kangaroos with a win.
Fellow youngsters Darcie Manning and Heidi Schmidt have also been influential in the mid court, and Pike said their major semi showdown on the road against Charles Sturt University will be a valuable learning experience.
The match-ups for week one of the finals have now been set before the final round. Defending champions The Rock-Yerong Creek completed an unbeaten regular season to secure top spot with a 59-19 thrashing of East Wagga Kooringal.
Coleambally will take on North Wagga in the elimination final, with who finishes fourth and fifth to be decided.
The Bushsows' only two losses have come against TRYC, and beat Temora by 27 and 43 goals in their two-match-ups this season.
"One hundred per cent (we've exceeded out expectations)," Pike said.
"It doesn't matter where we finish the year, we've come so far from round one to now, and the second chance guarantees us at least another game to get ready for next year.
"All I want to do against CSU is just have a better margin, if we can't beat them. It's a very young side and they've done extremely well to handle the pressure, and tough opponents.
"We come up against the best in the league so the girls should be very proud of themselves."
Pike said they wanted to unsettle the Saints early in the match.
"I think we got the first five goals so we rattled them from the get-go, which is what I asked the girls to do," she said.
"The two young girls in the shooting circle showed lots of maturity, to get 70 goals between them in 60 minutes is pretty impressive.
"We haven't really played CSU at our full potential yet, we've always had missing players or injuries and hopefully the girls can rise to the occasion.
"It can be quite daunting for the young girls coming straight from juniors into a first grade final against CSU, they always get a packed crowd there."
In other matches on Saturday Coleambally denied Marrar a first win of the season with a 45-43 victory and CSU trounced Northern Jets 76-21.
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