By Lauren Henry

Horsham Demons were victorious in the Wimmera league A Grade grand final on Saturday, keeping calm and steady to hang onto a 63-58 win.

Defeating rivals and reigning premiers Horsham Saints, the Demons won their first premiership since 2016.

Horsham coach Ebonie Salter said she was proud of her team and what her players had achieved this season.

“It’s been a long time coming and a lot of people are interested in the flag this year and not just the group of us are out there on the court,” she said.

“It means a lot for the club and we knew that, but we didn’t want to focus on that too much ... it just feels really nice to be able to do it.”

Horsham goal shooter Imogen Worthy, with 36 goals, was awarded best on court, combining well with goal attack Georgia Batson, 27, but as Salter pointed out, the Demons ‘did not have any passengers’ at Dimboola on Saturday.

The grand final opened with a first quarter that couldn’t get more even, with the score line at 14-all at the first break.

The Demons settled to shoot out to a 23-17 lead, as the Saints scrambled to claw back the margin.

Saints coach Jess Cannane swung changes to her defence end, but it didn’t faze the Demons who extended their lead to 27-19.

Horsham kept its game steady and remained calm, dominating the second term thanks to its goalers finding their groove to lead 32-25 at half time.

The Saints struggled to gain an advantage in the third term and more changes were made to their defence end, to no avail.
Meanwhile the Demons’ defenders were solid as a rock, as smiling assassin Romi Miller worked tirelessly in goal defence to quell Abby Hallam.

While it was mostly an even third term, the Demons edged out to a 51-42 lead, as the crowd watched on and waited for a Saints’ comeback.

It was all systems go in the fourth quarter as the Demons increased their lead to 10 goals.

Both the players and the crowd were more vocal but, try and they might, the Saints could not make the inroads required.

The Saints mounted a mini comeback, largely thanks to under-17 goal shooter Jorja Clode who shot 46 goals, and at one stage the margin was reduced to six late in the game.

But the Demons displayed a steady, safe, and consistent game, cherishing every possession and hanging onto the win, 63-58.

“We know that Saints score most of the time off their centre passes and so when we could get those couple of rebounds, turnovers and forced some errors, we had to convert those and that’s what our focus had been,” Salter said.

“We’ve probably given ourselves a lot of opportunities throughout the year but we haven’t always capitalised on them.

“We just wanted to make sure that we really shored things up and looked after the ball a bit better – and we did that in that second quarter really well and then continued to do that all throughout the game.

“They did come back in that last quarter, and we had talked about what it takes to win a premiership – and none of those girls out there had ever won an A grade premiership before – it takes a lot of focus to really play through those last few minutes and not throw things away.”

Salter said the Demons had worked on playing through tense patches in games.

“We’ve had to work on that. We worked on that right up until the game, and even throughout the game. 

“It takes a lot of focus, just a lot of talking about that, and trying to remind ourselves that a good team like the Saints will come back,” she said.

“They’ll always come back and we need to just stay calm and just keep going.

“We probably didn’t do that so well in that semi-final where we did have the lead, and they came back and got a few late ones and that we ended up losing the game.”

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