Alice Teague-Neeld has spoken about how West Coast Fever has quickly become like family to her after joining the club during the last off-season.
The rising Goal Attack took the court against her former side Collingwood Magpies for the first time in Suncorp Super Netball in Monday night’s 63-57 loss at RAC Arena.
“It is the first time I’ve played against my old club, but to be honest it did not feel like playing an old club,” Teague-Neeld said. “I feel like I’ve been at Fever for ages.”
“It’s 100 per cent become a family for me here.”
Teague-Neeld said Fever were disappointed to lose to the Magpies but had shown promise for three quarters, winning two bonus points along the way.
“It was tough,” she said.
“It is very competitive, other than about a five-minute block in the third quarter, which we have tended have a bit of a fadeout in recent games, just in a small part but we know where we need to improve.”
Teague-Neeld said she had benefited from another 60 minutes on court, where she contributed 21 goals assists, three goals, 23 feeds and 27 centre pass receives.
The 23-year-old is growing in confidence.
“I feel like I’m still building,” she said. “It is good to get those four quarters in a few games and really build and getting those connections out there with Jhaniele (Fowler) and Ingrid (Colyer) and the more you do it, the better it’s going to get.”
Teague-Neeld said the players were determined to finish off the season on a high, despite missing out on finals.
She was looking forward to a clash with the Queensland Firebirds in front of Fever’s passionate home crowd before they travel to Sydney to take on the Giants in the final round.
Teague-Neeld said there had been plenty of growth in the team, despite not getting the wins.
“We are looking forward to putting on a great show for our fans and hopefully get over the line against the Firebirds,” Teague-Neeld said.
“We are really excited. Even though we know that we can’t make finals, it’s a really important two games to lead into next season, just to finish off because we know what we can do and we really want to put it out there.”
“This season has been a tough one for everyone as a team and then individually so I think to finish off strongly would mean a lot to everyone and we really want to do that for our fans as well.”
Catch Fever live this weekend when they take on the Firebirds.
