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Stoic Melbourne Vixens centre Natasha Chokljat says she’s shattered and her teammates are still in shock after their trans-Tasman netball season came to a premature end.
Chokljat fought her way back from a knee injury to take to the court in last night’s elimination semi-final against the fast-finishing Adelaide Thunderbirds.
But her `Dream Team’ came up short.
Holding a two goal lead at three-quarter time, the Vixens saw their season slip through their fingers as Adelaide romped to a 53-48 win front of a sell-out home crowd.
The Vixens were widely favoured to take out the inaugural ANZ Championship crown but fell at the first hurdle in the finals.
Adelaide will next meet Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic in Hamilton on Monday for a place in the NSW Swift-hosted grand final.
Chokljat, who is one of six Australian squad members in the side, said her team failed to find the constancy needed in netball’s new league.
“That’s our season over which is a really disappointing result, we finished fourth and we’re very upset,” she said.
“As far as I’m concerned I think that everyone in the team would be feeling that we’ve underachieved.
“We’ve definitely got the potential and we’ve got some brilliant players but unfortunately it just didn’t gel this year.”
Chokljat has played a part in four premiership sides over the past 10 years at the Melbourne based club, who were re-named Vixens this year.
“The level of competition in this league has been so much stronger, the finals weren’t decided until the last week,” she said.
“In the old competition you would already know who the top four were going to be…you only had to get yourselves up for one or two games and you could just cruise for the rest of the season.
“But the new competition has been really tight… if you don’t play well you’re going to lose.
“We had a couple of losses this year, just because we didn’t play well,” she said.
“We’re going to have to get used to putting in our best performance every week, which has been a little bit tough.
“The girls just have to face the fact that we actually weren’t good enough and we’ll have to try again next year.”
The Australian centre will spend the next couple of weeks resting her knee which pulled up `pretty sore’ following last night’s loss.