The Lakers pulled out of the A Grade competition ahead of the 2021 season due to the changing circumstances of players in their side.

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McDonald, who has stepped aside from her role as president to coach, is looking forward to the "new challenge" of leading the reinstated A Grade side. She will also coach the club's B Grade team.

"I've had a lot of roles at the club, so to step up to the A Grade role is definitely a new one in my experience at the club," McDonald said.

"It'll be good to sink my teeth into that."

McDonald is as much a part of Taylors Lake netball as one can be; she was capped almost 300 times as a player and is a Life Member.

Although she hasn't coached the top grade before, she has experience coaching C Grade and juniors at the club and is keen to see the club represented in the top division again.

"The club is in my heart," she said.

"We needed to rebuild our A Grade side because we didn't have one last year and I thought you know what lets just give it a go and help the club move forward in the netball department."

As president in 2021, McDonald said the decision to not field an A Grade side was "a very tough decision for (the club) to make but it was one we needed to make."

"Nobody likes to not field that A Grade side," she said.

"The things that were happening in our A Grade side, like the major losses and things like that were actually very detrimental to our playing group.

"We needed to give them the opportunity to play down a grade, give them more experience and get the love of netball back."

Before dropping out of A Grade the Lakers had struggled for success over a long period, only breaking a seven year A Grade winless streak in July 2019.

Last year though in the second division, McDonald said the side rediscovered the "excitement and love" that comes with playing netball and would have played finals had the season not been abandoned.

According to the former president the side have "managed to retain most of those girls from 2021".

"They are a very talented bunch of girls they just needed that break from A Grade," she said.

"It'll be great for them to step back into A Grade."

With the season edging slowly closer, McDonald has a few goals in mind for her side, which will soon start to take shape.

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She is starting simple, hoping to field a full team every week and will work from there.

"Just to put seven girls on the court each week will be good, because we didn't have it last year," she said.

"It'd be nice to be competitive, we're hoping that we can recruit some new faces.

"Maybe there's some B Grade players at other clubs that can't break into the A Grade side and they might like to come out and help us rebuild our A Grade side."

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