Northern Hawks and Cavaliers face-off in third installment

The cross-town rivals have continued to win across the rest of the state league, with the Hawks sitting atop the ladder and the Cavs second.

This season's games have yielded a win in St Helens for the Hawks and a draw.

However, the teams facing one another on Saturday will differ from those in May.

The Hawks lost then-captain Danni Pickett to a ruptured Achilles, and Cavs attacker Zoe Claridge has missed time due to a shoulder injury.

A number of younger players have been called up to the plate in the meantime, including Courtney Treloar (Hawks) and Olive Morris (Cavs).

Hawks captain Gemma Poke said the side was ready for the challenge.

"For us, the foot isn't coming off," she said.

"Definitely we have to refine and this week we definitely trained really hard to just solidify in our minds that we know what we have to do.

"That our systems and our structures work when we do the work, so let's get out there and do it this weekend."

Since drawing with the Hawks in May, the Cavs have outscored opponents 407 goals to 185 across six games.

"It's just about continuing to reflect all the time about previous matches, not only the Hawks and making sure we're pulling out the key focusses and learnings from those games," Cavs co-coach Dannie Carstens said.

"Coming into Hawks - the gameplan's not going to change. It's just refining it and executing it better than what we have before."

In spite of losing Pickett, the Hawks have remained the league's scoring juggernaut, commanding a goal differential of 1071-557 for the season.

Carstens plans on her team matching the Hawks' intensity across all four quarters.

"What let us down last time was certainly our third quarter," she said.

"We had built really good momentum throughout the game, then we had one bad quarter and basically had to fight really hard to come back and hold on.

"If we finished the game how we started it, we would have come away with it quite easily.

"It sounds so cliche, but we're really looking to build consistency throughout the whole match and not have a quarter where we're having to claw things back."

The Hawks have not lost since the Tasmanian Netball League grand final in August 2019, going down 65-59 to the Cavaliers.

Poke said after her team's resilience in their last match against the Cavs, they've only improved.

"If you look at what happened to us in that game, we lost our captain [Pickett] to a torn Achilles, we had Lydia [Coote] rolling her ankle on our defensive end, and we pegged back a 10-goal deficit to draw the game which could have been won if not for a couple of mistakes," she said.

"I take great pride and confidence from that game knowing that if we do everything we need to do and step up to play really good netball, nothing will be able to stop us."

Seven players on the court on Saturday night will also celebrate being named to the Tasmanian team that will attend the Australian National Championships in September.

Both Poke and Carstens said it was great to have players recognised as the best in the state by external stakeholders.

Do you know someone who is contributing to Northern Tasmanian sport, whether through participating or assisting?

The Examiner's Junior Sports Awards, sponsored by Woolworths, provide acknowledgement of accomplishments by players, coaches, volunteers, teams and clubs across the region.

Nominations are open from Wednesday, April 14, and will close at midnight on October 4.

Entries must include a photograph of the entrant.