Aussies Take Game 2 - Constellation Cup

Photo courtesy of Zimbio.com

The Australian Diamonds finally clicked into gear last night beating the Silver Ferns in Auckland, while the Silver Ferns can consider themselves lucky that they managed to hold on to only lose by 2 goals, basically it could have been much worse. 

Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander finally realized what a few of us already knew, that she needed to make changes to her starting 7 to give the team the best chance of pulling off a victory. 

Alexander stuck with the 7 that finished test one in Invercargill on Sunday night and it paid dividends, let's face it any Australian side that can restrict Tutaia and IVD to a team total shooting percentage of 76.2% is doing their job.

After watching the game in full despite knowing the result I was drawn to the girls demeanor during the national anthems prior to the match commencing. Our girls compared to our Australian counterparts looked flat and slightly fatigued. The body language did not look switched on and ready for battle. Could have just been what I interpreted but it could explain the very flat performance that followed. 

Again the midcourt was a concern for the Silver Ferns. After a couple of early turnovers gained by our defensive end, I felt that starting WA Anna Thompson was playing too high in the centre third and was disrupting the flow down court and into the attack end. It was also a case of when she was available for an easy pass, again she was not utilised, as Liz Ellis said mid - week, the Ferns are only playing with 6 players and ignoring there WA. 

I hate to harp on about Anna Thompson, but simply put I just don't think she is up to international level, especially against Australia. After finishing Test 1 strongly, she deserved the starting bib and push for a more permanent position. However by the end of the first quarter, she broke on our own centre pass (something which I deem unacceptable at that level of netball, a real coach killer) and received 0 centre passes and also had no goal assists. For some of you who are new to netball, the WA's main role is to feed the goalers, basically nothing else.

For Australia, Nat Medhurst deservedly got the starting GA bib over Erin Bell and has proven once again what a consistent and well rounded player she is. Her delivery into Bassett at times was flawless, the well placed use of the fake with the ball, drawing De Bruin and Kopua off Bassett into the pockets paid dividends on more than once occasion. 

On the opposite side of the scale Maria Tutaia probably had a night in the black dress she will not look back on fondly. With Bianca Chatfield given the GD bib she would have been close to player of the match. Restricting Tutaia to a 67% shooting percentage is pretty impressive, however which way you look at it. I am sure that after a game like that Tutaia will bring her A game to the next test in Australia, she very rarely has a bad game and will be keen to impress. I have always admired Tutaia when she is having a rare off night, right until the final whistle she is still fairly consistent at going to the post, something which a lot of GA's struggle to maintain.

I noticed that during the course of the match, IVD seems to be in the habit of moving off her holding position slightly early which in turn is giving Laura Geitz more of an opportunity for an intercept or a deflection. It seems that she has gradually been getting into this habit and I hope it can be rectified going forward.

Courtney Tairi was brought on for the second half and I felt had a better performance than Thompson. As the stats shows she had a more productive half than Thompson and I felt allowed Tutaia to get into the goal circle earlier which was freeing up space for Langman to get into prime feeding position on the outside of the circle.

WA Stats

Courtney Tairi - 8 centre pass recieves, 1 intercept, 3 goal assits

Anna Thompson - 1 centre pass recieve, 1 turnover, 

There was certainly patches of fantastic play from the Ferns, and they do say that you learn more from a loss than a win so i'm sure that our girls will come back firing for the Australian leg of the competition and will do us proud.

Go get em girls!

What did you think of the match?