She has been selected to play in the Australian Netball League’s Victorian Fury squad and its season overlaps the Goulburn Valley League competition.
It is a significant step up for McDonald, but she said unfortunately it had come at a cost for her first season as A-grade coach.
‘‘As a national competition it is played every weekend and we are either in Melbourne or on the road,’’ McDonald said.
‘‘ANL doesn’t kick off until May, so I will be playing the opening rounds with the rest of the team, but after that will be relying pretty heavily on the captain and team manager to help me get the most out of the girls during the winter season.’’
Before this year McDonald, an A-grade premiership player and league medallist, had also played in the Victorian Netball League for a few seasons, but joining the second-tier ANL has boosted the 25-year-old’s career to new heights.
It ranks her as one of the best netballers in the state.
‘‘I will be playing as many games with Seymour as I can before the ANL starts, so I will be able to quality for the finals because I strongly believe that’s where we are going in 2019,’’ she said.
‘‘I had been invited to ANL trials and everything just happened from there — it’s as though it had all been planned.
‘‘After the trials I received a phone call asking me to join a training partnership, then out of the blue came the call to join the Fury — it is very exciting to be part of that.’’
The demands are huge. The physical education teacher at Seymour College is training in Melbourne five days a week and clocking up a lot of frequent flyer miles (in her car).
Fortunately she said most of the Lions’ pre-season was complete and she believed the club would be fielding its strongest line-up for years.
‘‘I have a good arrangement in place with the captain and team manager for the games I am going to miss,’’ McDonald said.
‘‘The team is an impressive group, a mixture of established players, some outstanding juniors coming up through the ranks, and Melbourne University division one player Jess Lallo, who will add some real strength to the offence as primarily a goal attack.
‘‘By having such a consistent line up I think we will benefit from the past season where we finished sixth after being around third for much of the year.’’
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