The 2026 Ovens and King netball season is officially underway, and for current A grade premiers Bonnie Doon, it was a near-perfect start to their quest for a consecutive flag.

The Bombers took the four points in their opening round clash with fellow contenders Tarrawingee, after a dominant second half saw them triumph 53-40.

Having last met in the 2025semi-finals, Tarrawingee was eager to get one back over the reigning premiers.

It was exceedingly close early, with just one point the difference at quarter time and the margin sitting at four by the half.

Both sides were quickly settling into the rhythms of a match after a prolonged preseason.

The Bombers seized their chances in the third term, and slowly began to pull away thanks to brilliant performances from shooter Amy Starzer and defensive bastion Bec Watson.

Tarrawingee tried to claw their way back into the contest through Casie Peters, Kate Whiley and Mollie Chamberlain, the heat of the day had started taking a toll on players, as Bonnie Doon’s fitness came to the fore.

The Bombers outscored the Bulldogs 15-6 through the third quarter, before a scoring frenzy saw Bonnie Doon run out winners by 13 goals.

Bonnie Doon coach Cass McCormack said it was a terrific way to start their season.

“It took them the first quarter to get themselves sorted, then they got better and better throughout the day which was good to see,” she said.

“Because we were down a player, Demi Murray came up from B grade, she’s been impressing at training and she came in and gave the girls a bit of a rest because it was so hot.

“We had that extra rotation with rolling subs which we actually did really well, we were pretty proud of our rolling subs – it just gave us some fresh legs coming through.

“The girls played consistently throughout the game, we didn’t drop off in the game it was really good to see the girls combining quite well together.”

Starzer was almost perfect under the post, finishing with 43 goals at 84.31 per cent accuracy, ably supported by Chloe Cash (10 @ 71.43 per cent).

“She’s just such a big threat to a lot of other teams, she’s so dominant in her holding,” McCormack said of Starzer.

“We play on her at training and you just can’t get around her.

“I don’t envy other teams having to work that, but it’s also good because she’s versatile, she’s actually a goal attack, she doesn’t love sitting back in goal shooter watching it all sometimes.

“We also had Bec Watson down the other end in goal keeper, last season was her first season back after coming through the juniors, and this year she’s just onto it right away, she killed it down back against their goal shooter.”

In other matches in round one, Milawa hammered Moyhu 74-27, the Bats got the job done over Benalla All Blacks 46-15, North Wangaratta went down to Bright 18-52, and Whorouly scraped together a 10-goal win over Greta.