Women’s indoor season gets underway

Dundee Wanderers start their women’s National League indoor season this weekend as they set out to retain their crown, but there are some unknown factors in the background of the race to the title.

Firstly, it is not certain who will be turning out for top sides Wanderers, Grove Menzieshill, Milne Craig Western and Edinburgh University as Scotland coach Gordon Shepherd starts the build-up for the Commonwealth Games with a warm-weather training camp in Gran Canaria from 13 January to 3 February.

Women's indoor season gets underway
Last season’s National 1 Grand Final between Grove Menzieshill and MJV Dundee Wanderers – photo by Duncan Gray

The champions commence their defence with a difficult hurdle against Western followed by the assignment of playing Kelburne. The Taysiders certainly beat the Glasgow side 8-2 in the championships semi-final, but it was a different story in the league encounter. Western raced into a four goal lead through Ali Eadie, Susie Gillman, Lexi Sabatelli and Kayleigh Justice, and although a Bunce hat-trick reduced the score to 4-3 Wanderers failed to retrieve the situation.

Grove Menzieshill could once again be the main stumbling block to Wanderers` title retention, but they could also lose some players to international commitments, especially the free-scoring Sarah Jamieson.

Grove Menzieshill came close in last year`s final to upsetting their Dundee rivals, but went down 4-2 in the end. They start this season`s campaign against Wildcats and Edinburgh University.

The newly promoted Edinburgh students certainly took the indoor season by storm, they finished second equal in the initial league competition, drawing 3-3 in their opening fixture with Western and beating Grove Menzieshill 4-3 in the process. They followed up this success by finishing top of pool 1B but failed to progress to the final after going down 4-3 to Grove Menzieshill. University finally finished a commendable fourth after losing 3-1 to Western in the 3/4 play-off.

The students start their campaign against Wildcats, then they renew their acquaintance with Grove in the second outing with their last game of the day against Hillhead, if they can maintain last season`s form it will undoubtedly result in a more competitive season.

At this stage it is difficult to know how the other sides will perform, that is Wildcats and CALA Edinburgh from last season along with newly promoted Kelburne and Hillhead.

 

Recent posts:

Back to all news
Back to top