The 20-year-old is steadily becoming more familiar with the game in her new hometown.

Part of this process is being part of a Federation Uni Ballarat Pride senior development squad.

This is allowing her to not only train with the Victorian Netball League team, but also make some appearances for Pride in division one – hopefully laying the foundation for her to one day play at the top level for Ballarat.

Costello took up netball as a 10-year-old and went on to earn selection in Fiji’s national 21-and-under team, at 18, to play against Malawi.

Costello represented Fiji in last year’s world 21/under championships in Scotland.

She moved to Ballarat last year and it was after her mother became involved with Brown Hill in the Ballarat Netball Association that the opportunity arose to link up with Pride, and she was added to the development program.

In the meantime, Costello is also hoping to see Ballarat find winning form in the VNL – starting with Western Lightning at the State Netball and Hockey Centre tonight.

While Ballarat remains winless in the championship division after six rounds, Western has a 50-50 record with three wins and sixth position.

Head coach Jo Dash said a primary objective for Pride continued to be a reduction of mistakes.

She said statistics showed Pride could force turnovers through hard work and persistence.

“Unfortunately, we turn it over too often.”

Dash said the attack of Birgitta Nemeric, Cindy Daniel, Johanna Dash and Cass Peace had started to work well and goalers were working on improving accuracy.

“The key to continued improvement is more shots on goal,” she said.