By Mikayla van Loon
With the new year comes a new name and colours for one of Lilydale’s netball teams, taking on the Falcons’ blue and gold.
Making the change from St Patrick’s Netball Club to the Lilydale Falcons Junior Netball Club was a decision that came about last year.
“We were finding that over time, we had dwindling numbers with St Patrick’s,” Lilydale Falcons registrar Jehanne Upton said.
“The name being associated with St Patrick’s school and the parish in Lilydale, people weren’t as familiar with that and didn’t necessarily connect that with Lilydale and often didn’t know that we were a Lilydale team.”
Rebranding to join the junior and senior football, senior netball and cricket teams in the Falcons name seemed like the perfect boost for the club in its 10th year.
“We were really keen to reinvent ourselves a little bit, especially post Covid and losing a few girls to other different clubs,” Jehanne said.
“The football club was certainly keen on the idea, too, because they’re looking to draw in more girls into the footy club. So it was a win-win for both of us really to create that connection.”
Taking on their inaugural Lilydale and Yarra Valley Netball Association season as the only Lilydale-named team beginning in March, Jehanne said the hope is the new evolution of netball in the town will strengthen player numbers.
The netball club is now looking for potential players, with vacancies in all age groups from under nines to under 17s.
“Last year we had three teams, so we had under 13, under 15 and under 17. A number of our girls do need to move up age groups this year,” Jehanne said.
“We’re hoping that we’ll still have at least those three age groups but ideally, we’d really like to start filling some of the younger age groups as well, because obviously, you need those younger girls to then move up into the older teams to backfill them as they get older.
“So we can create space in any of those age groups, particularly we’d like big numbers in the nines and 11s, at least enough for a team.”
Getting to don the blue and gold uniform for the first time at the Lilydale Street Fair in December was a special moment for the players.
“Most people know Lilydale sporting clubs wear blue and gold. So getting into those colours is really exciting for the girls and they’re all really keen for the new uniforms.
“We’ve kept the same dress design as our St Patrick’s dress, we’ve just changed the colours, to keep a little bit of our heritage in there as well which they’ve also appreciated.”
Registrations close in early February, with games getting underway on Saturday 3 March at Pinks Reserve.
To inquire about signing up, contact lilydalefalconsnetballclub@gmail.com
