As the season has ended I’ve had time to look back and reflect, and what an amazing NSL 2024 it has been. I have really enjoyed representing Pulse for the third season in a row, and the players especially make it such an enjoyable and happy environment.
It was so sad to lose the experience of Chelsea Pitman and Lindsay Keable, and I think as a squad we really felt their presence missed in the first few games. However the replacements of them in Izzie and Darcie have been so good; I genuinely can’t believe how young they are and how much they have smashed this season. They both brought the best energy and it was so nice to be able to share the court with them and be part of their first NSL experiences. It was also great to have Jeresia and Nichole, and I learnt so much from them both. It’s so good to be in a diverse team in terms of styles of play, personalities etc, so to be able to learn from different people and the ways in which they might execute different set plays, etc was so beneficial. Nichole would often tell us about Norma Plumber’s set ups in certain game scenarios and I would soak up the information like a sponge because learning from legends is so amazing.
I loved being part of the 12 for Pulse; everyone was different in their own way but we were all on the same page in wanting the same outcome for the team. Every player offered something different, and you knew if there was ever a change made or a substitute, the next person coming on could offer something else and mix it up which gave us so much confidence knowing we could adapt if we needed to. It was really fun getting to know everyone throughout the season and it’s so much more enjoyable playing when you get on with the people around you.
The round games were really good; we lost 3 games in total and 2 of them were in the first 4 games. The second half of the season felt really consistent in terms of wins, but we always wanted to get better and being quite a critical team, we were definitely hard on ourselves at times. But if you want to win, you have to always find ways to improve and the whole team was really good at that.
We then went to play offs which were quite hard. Having been in the final the previous season, it was hard not to make that. We’d beaten Loughborough twice in the round games, so it was really hard to be beaten by them so convincingly in the semi. We accepted that we didn’t perform well and Loughborough absolutely smash play offs as everyone knows.
The team moral and closeness of the players became really obvious in the final game for the bronze medal. It’s so hard to re motivate yourself after losing. You don’t have time to cry for a few days because you have to go straight back to training to fight for the bronze, and after already losing to stars we knew it would be a tough game.
Despite not getting the gold, we ended the season on a high and I wouldn’t change anything about the team! You either win or you learn and I can’t wait to see what next season holds for everyone.
