The year can be divided into two halves so far – the unbeaten first five games, the last of which Kim Green went down in with a season-ending knee injury, and the six games since without their inspirational captain.

That the club remains in second spot with three rounds to play is testament to the Giants' ability to grind out close wins.

Their two losses came against the top-placed Melbourne Vixens and the star-studded Magpies while their four wins have been narrow, against opposition outside the top four.

Sunday's clash in Canberra against the Vixens starts a three-game stretch which could make or break their year. After the in-form ladder leaders, they play last year's ANZ Championship winning Queensland Firebirds and then the high-powered third-placed Sunshine Coast Lightning.

It will be the perfect litmus test for Fitzgerald before the competition's maiden finals campaign.

For both Victorian teams, but for different reasons, the inaugural Super Netball season has been a tale of the unexpected. For the soaring Melbourne Vixens, who have defied predictions of a modest mid-ladder finish to sweep to flag favouritism three rounds from the finals, all in a good way. For the underperforming fourth-placed Magpies, not so much.

Yet if Collingwood were meant to be so much better, the Vixens were not supposed to be this good. But, having exited in the first week of last year's trans-Tasman finals, they then lost defensive rock Geva Mentor while looking to the future, and captain Madi Robinson to the big-money lure of the black and white stripes now also worn by Alice Teague-Neeld. Few forecast what has followed – although coach Simone McKinnis' quiet confidence that hers was a special group of eager, committed, team-first learners has been vindicated.

"Not many of us gave them much of a chance," said commentator, columnist and former Diamonds captain Liz Ellis, admitting she had not nominated the Vixens among her top four. But why would she? The three new franchises had all recruited a host of big names, and there were still the triple ANZ-Championship-winning – if depleted – Queensland Firebirds seemingly closer to the head of the queue.

And yet, 11 rounds later, none have quite matched the Vixens. None, at least not since the Giants lost captain Kim Green to an ACL tear, have a line-up as settled or complete. Their sole loss came in round two against the Sunshine Coast Lightning, and the subsequent – and hugely wasteful – draw with the depleted NSW Swifts at home was the prelude to eight consecutive wins. McKinnis' preferred seven have played almost every minute, Jo Weston and Emily Mannix seizing Mentor's defensive baton, the lesser-known Chloe Watson entrenching herself at wing defence and Kate Moloney and her great pal Liz Watson (with a league-high 225 goal assists and 427 circle feeds) shifting their mid-court roles forward to replace Robinson and doing it so effectively that there has been no loss to mourn.

Forgotten shooter Tegan Philip has returned from a knee reconstruction in career-best form that should have the Diamonds goal attacks fearful for their selection prospects a year out from the Commonwealth Games, while her scoring partner Mwai Kumwenda has been a revelation, as consistent as she is exciting. Collectively: a competition-best 683 goals at 89 per cent, including the most of any team from centre passes and turnovers.

But it is Moloney, the new skipper, who perhaps best embodies the new Vixens. Other leaders have higher profiles and wardrobes full of Diamonds' dresses, but Moloney is all heart, effort and discipline. Even when leading by 12 with just three minutes left against the Firebirds on Saturday night she used the final time-out to remind her teammates that "this is our forte – no one works harder than us", told them "we win these last three minutes" and declared that "we are brutal in defence and we make them pay every single time". So, for the most part, they do.

Unlike the Magpies, whose constant fiddling with the goal-attack role has been one of the season's biggest talking points. Five have been tried including briefly, last week, the admirable spearhead Caitlin Thwaites. Yes, five. As much as coach Kristy Keppich-Birrell protests that it is all part of a broader strategy to "play it differently", there are far more subscribers to the theory that if a goal attack was playing well enough she would be left to settle in.

Before Saturday night's final home game, against the Swifts, the mid-court also has its issues, with Kim Ravaillion benched at half-time again in last week's 56-49 loss to the Lightning. For all that, only an unthinkable collapse in the run to the finals will prevent the Magpies from the top-four slot still mathematically possible for the Firebirds to pinch. Once there, though, Collingwood will be dangerous. Surely. With that list, they have to be.

Whether the Giants or Lightning join the Vixens – probably – in double-chance territory could come down to their round-14 clash, and Sunday's top-two clash in Canberra will also be watched keenly. Could the Vixens versus the Giants be the grand final preview? If so, few saw the Victorian half of that one coming when the season started with Collingwood as raging title favourites 11 rounds ago.