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Melbourne Vixens celebrating their ANZ Championship win - Source: Getty
Defending champions Melbourne Vixens are confident they can lift to a new level to avoid falling victim to the target rivals have put on their backs for the new trans-Tasman netball season.
The Vixens' dominant march to the title last year and the retention of their entire preferred starting seven has marked them as warm favourites for this season's ANZ Championship.
They have endured a pre-season coach Julie Hoornweg has called the club's most disrupted because of injuries and off-season surgery to key players including co-captains Sharelle McMahon and Bianca Chatfield.
But the Vixens are determined not to suffer a similar downward spiral to the NSW Swifts the previous year, who went from defending champions to missing the finals altogether.
"Swifts were the target last year, we'll be the target this year," Hoornweg said on Wednesday.
"We've let go of last year. Before Christmas we said we were not talking about 2009, we're not talking about how good we were, we didn't want to rest on our laurels, we wanted to challenge ourselves.
"We've said that we want to play better netball. We can't rely on what we did last year. As good as it was, it's not good enough for this year."
Chatfield said the team had acknowledged premiership hangovers can happen, and believed they had taken steps to ensure it didn't happen to the Vixens.
"You would hate to be like that - we just want to win and we'll do everything we can to do it," Chatfield said.
"We had to challenge ourselves last year (after the Vixens failed to make the finals in 2008), and you have to every year.
"Every year you have to re-invent yourself, what your goals are, what you do at training.
"Every other team is changing things up, so we have to take the initiative as well."
McMahon, who underwent knee surgery and missed Australia's Tests against New Zealand and England over the past six months, is confident she will be fit for the Vixens' home season opener against Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic on Monday.
But she has played little competitive netball since her operation, limbering up for the season with a four-quarter pre-season hitout last weekend.
"Obviously as the season goes on I'll get more match-fit. I'm probably not where I want to be but I'm still feeling really good going into the first game," McMahon said.
Doubts remain over key Vixens defender Julie Corletto who has been receiving injections to overcome a knee problem in time for Monday's match.
That could mean a debut for 22-year-old Kara Richards, a new addition to the squad in 2010.
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