It’s hard to keep a good side down for long.

After missing finals in 2025 for the first time in a more than decade, Greta’s A grade netball squad looks to be back to their best, sitting second overall after round five.

The Blues have only dropped the one game, their opening round match against the currently undefeated Whorouly, but have strung a series of wins together off the back of staunch defensive discipline and structure, most recently a gritty 37-30 win over a strong Goorambat outfit.

Greta are ranked sixth in the comp for offensive output, but lead the league in fewest goals conceded, having only given up 123 from their four matches.

Blues co-coach Greg Newbold said their defence-first approach was paying dividends.

“We were pretty happy with our defence last year, and we battled to score high enough but we kept teams to what we reckoned we would consider a losing score, around 25-30 goals,” he said.

“This year, we’ve maintained a really good, strong defence as a group.

“If you’re going to be a good team, you have to be strong defensively if you’re going to go anywhere in a season.

“We found that out and knew that in football, and it’s exactly the same in football.

“We’re pretty happy with what we’ve got and the way we play defensively, we’ve just got to continue to improve on that and continue to give ourselves opportunities to score goals and make the most of it when we get turnovers.”

The Blues look to be the Greta of old, rebounding from last year’s disappointing eighth-placed finish, with players having an extra year together to gel properly.

“I think there’s been a growth in the players themselves, I think they’ve just continued to work hard and keep our expectations pretty realistic,” Newbold said.

“When you can put together a bit of consistency I think that makes a difference.

“There’s a bit more cohesion, we were very new last year, and some of the experienced players who came back last year had come back off a bit of a break, so they had to pick up the speed of the game again, and our younger girls are a bit more experienced now.

“All of those things make a difference.”

The Blues will be favourites to knock off the winless Hawks at North Wangaratta on the weekend, but Newbold was understandably cautious.

“We played North Wang in a practice match and they were very competitive – on what we saw, they’re a stronger team than last year, and if the results aren’t showing that yet, I’ll be very confident they’ll improve dramatically very quickly,” he said.

“We just want to continue to play consistently and build off what we’ve done so far in defence and also be really strong in attack.

“Ally Hussey who’s our tall goal keeper, she was back for the first time, she missed the first four rounds, we kept her in GK, but we know we can throw her forward which she did a fair bit of last year.

“We think it’ll be a really good game this week, they’ll be very hard to beat, but we want to continue to improve week on week.”

Greta takes on the Hawks from 2.30pm on Saturday, 2 May at North Wangaratta Recreation Reserve.