Steel stamp their authority over Tactix

The Southern Steel were simply unstoppable on Saturday afternoon against their southern counterparts the Canterbury Tactix pushing out to a 75-56 win. 

It was an impressive performance by Jamaican import Jhaniele Fowler who set an ANZ Championship record with 65 individual goals was simply unstoppable and exposed yet again the Tactix youthful back line. Of course a well-placed pass to anyone who stands at 1.98cm is going to be hard to stop but the Tactix defenders really struggled against her positional place and some superb feeding from GA stalwart Jodi Brown.

The closely fought first half saw young Tactix GA Sophia Fenwick stepping up and playing some fantastic netball as well as a strong shooting performance to balance English import Jo Harten. 

Both teams went into the break tied at 36 and a tightly contested second half looked like it was on the cards. This of course wasn't the case.

The Steel revved up a gear and outscored the Tactix in the 3rd quarter 21-11 in a ruthless display of netball. 

The 4th quarter change of Nauopu into GA for Fenwick was too little too late for the Tactix, however with her gaining her first court time for her Canterbury team this season, more can be expected of her with added court time as she recovers from her knee injury.

One worrying statistic for the Tactix coaching team will be the rebounds. The Steel nabbed 13 compared to the Tactix lowly 3. The Tactix goal shooting circle need to do more work on their offensive rebounds with Steel GD Sulu Tone-Fitzpatrick nabbing 5 and Rachel Rasmussen claiming 3.

The 19 goal thumping will be a concern for the Tactix going forward with many wondering where a win might be coming from after being thumped by only one of the two teams they managed to beat in last seasons competition.

The Steel face off against Thunderbirds this weekend in Invercargill with another battle of the Jamaican tall shooters. Jhaniele Fowler will need to continue her momentum and bring another strong performance to the table to be help her team be among the finals contenders further down the competition.

Statistics

Shooting - TACTIX

HARTEN - 78% - 29/37

FENWICK - 78% - 26/33

NAOUPU - 100% - 1/1

Shooting - STEEL

FOWLER - 92% - 65/70

BROWN - 90% - 10/11