A lack of suitable players prevented the Tigers from fielding a team in last season’s A-grade competition, but following a resurgence in player interest and much tireless work off the court by club officials and reappointed coach Dianne Guest-Oakley, Kyneton will look to impact the top level.

The Tigers’ re-entry into A-grade will boost the competition to at least nine teams, with the status of Castlemaine, which was also without a top-grade team in 2018, still unknown.

In further good news for the club and BFNL, Kyneton, which claimed last season’s A-reserve premiership, is poised to have teams in all four senior grades, with 38 players currently registered.

Guest-Oakley, who is in her third year as Kyneton’s coach, said the club was looking forward to the new season with renewed excitement.

“There’s a bit of a buzz around Kyneton at the moment with some girls who haven’t played for a few years coming back to us,” she said.

“Four teams is our aim and hopefully that will happen.

“Unfortunately we likely won’t have under-17s again this year, but everything is going well between (the club) and the Kyneton Netball Association for the juniors and we are trying to get a partnership happening for our juniors coming through.”

The Tigers have started the last two seasons without a full complement of senior teams.

In 2017, the club fielded only A-grade and B-reserve teams, while last season it was A-reserve, B-grade and B-reserve.

The Tigers were an A-grade finalist as recently as 2015, but finished with just one win in ninth place in their most recent campaign in 2017, following eight wins and a draw and seventh place finish in 2016.

Oakley-Guest credited the Tigers’ emotional A-reserve premiership win against Kangaroo Flat last September as a factor in the club’s renaissance.

“I see our top three teams (A-grade, A-reserve and B-grade) giving the other teams a real run for their money,” she said.

“The A-reserve girls who won the premiership last year, a lot of them will be going back into A-grade.

“We’ve still got a lot to learn, but the girls are definitely ready for another challenge.

“The experienced girls like Fletch (Michelle Fletcher) and the Mangan girls (Brooke and Jess) are hanging around again, and a lot of the new girls this year are old players who are coming back to the club.”

Kyneton’s imminent return to A-grade will come as comfort to league officials and rivals clubs, after a stop-start 2018 season.

The eight competing teams were each allocated four byes during the season, added to the traditional inter-league weekend break.

Oakley-Guest, who has travelled from Melbourne twice a week for training and again on game day for the past two seasons, has now turned her attention to adding some coaches at Kyneton.

She said the club was also keen on further building its player-base.

To register interest, email netball co-ordinator Cara Grambeau at kfnc.netball@gmail.com