Confusion was the nature of the game at the weekend, with Lancefield and Romsey’s grade A netball match cancelled in the fourth term.
Only eight minutes remaining of the fourth term, the match came to an end after a disagreement on the court between club officials and an umpire.
The match was going strong for the historic rivals in round six of the Riddell District Netball Football League, RDFNL, up until the umpire called it, with Lancefield securing the 27-33 win.
Romsey’s Charlize Bellette made scoring efforts, matched by Lancefield’s goal shooter Shane Brundell giving 24 points for Lancefield to take the lead.
RDFNL general manager of operations Grace Bibby said it was a disappointing day given it was Romsey Football Netball Club’s 150th celebration match.
“What should have been a fantastic day between two clubs was really disappointing, no doubt for both clubs and from a league perspective as well,” she said.
“Just a disagreement and probably a bit of a lack of understanding of the rules when it comes to sending players off and whether they can return to the court or not.”
Bibby said RDFNL was still working through the process in collecting information from both teams.
“Still working through the process, just collating the information from the umpires and the players, but everyone will have the opportunity to tell us their side of the story, and then we’ll just see how it plays out from there,” she said.
Despite the game’s circumstances, Lancefield coach Ciara Stewart said the Tigers made a strong effort with its full side on court.
“We were winning by eight before the game was called out … for us that was a good amount to be up and maintain that, and I believe we would have kept on and won that game,” she said.
Lancefield will take on Ms Stewart’s former club Macedon in round seven while Romsey will go head-to-head with Woodend Hesket.
The Review reached out to Romsey for comment, but were unavailable to provide comment on time.
Elsewhere Wallan kept to its winning ways against Woodend Hesket, with a 14-point win.
The first half was a tough battle for both teams, but the third quarter was Wallan’s game with its players capitalising on some momentum and gaining breathing space.
Lucas Bennett-Hullin said once again the side had a strong focus on its game plan which has worked well for Wallan so far this season.
“It was always going to be an interesting game with both teams having key outs due to workload ahead of the Sunday VNL fixture,” he said.
“Dakota Lister and Genevieve Carboon had another standout performance in the midcourt and Rebekah Konstantopolous controlled the attack end brilliantly.”
Bennett-Hullin said the side looked forward to facing Woodend-Hesket in the second half of the year with both teams having all players available.
