Boisterous crowd makes for great atmosphere with plenty of sore throats on and off the court
Round three of The FIAT Netball Superleague concluded with a fantastic clash between Yorkshire Jets and Team Northumbria at the Bonus Arena in Hull on Monday night. The hosts raced into a commanding lead at the interval with a 13 goal lead but the visitors showed phenomenal spirit and resilience to threaten a shock come back. Ultimately, time was against Lisa Stanley’s side and they were defeated 46-42 in front of a huge crowd that roared with appreciation from the first to the final whistle.
Yorkshire Jets Coach Anna Carter admitted it was difficult getting her instructions over to her team because of the fans, she said “It was quite loud here tonight, I now have a husky voice after shouting at my team over quite a loud crowd. It was a tough one, we always knew it was going to be tough. Northumbria came off a good win against Celtic Dragons so they were up on us, we knew we had to come out tonight as the underdogs and prove our worth and to be fair, the girls did that.”
Yorkshire Jets are well known for playing excellently in patches but failing to sustain the performance, as was the case again on Monday. Carter revealed that they are still working on the consistency of their play, “I had some cool heads out on court mixed with some younger over enthusiastic heads, it was nice to get a gutsy win. For us the cliché is we need to play consistently for four quarters, we haven’t managed that yet. I suppose we are looking at taking that back a stage and even playing consistently for three, that would be a starting point. I think if we can nail that down we could be up there, and make it more enjoyable to watch for me as a coach!”
In the third match of the season, the hosts took the chance to shuffle their starting seven. In regards to the changes, Head Coach Carter explained “We looked at players that had been training well and who the game suited in terms of the tactics that we wanted to put out there and it worked for the first half, but the second half we need to look at how to change it up or to stick to the game plan more ruthlessly. I think the third quarter is something we need to look at again from a sport psych perspective or just changing a game up and throwing something else out there. I think in regards to the second half its back to the drawing board a little bit.”
With the visitors applying the pressure in the final quarter, Lauren Potter and Jo McKinney defended resolutely to shut out Northumbria with numerous tips and interceptions. Carter hopes that their form translates across the court as the season ahead unfolds, she said “The defence have been really good for the three games we’ve played, with Thunder we got 11 turnovers each quarter, Mavericks we had a really good turnover rate and today. The team defence is quite strong at the moment but the attack just needs to learn how to feed of that. I don’t think anybody could write the script this season I think it’s going to be a tough old season and an exciting one for netball supporters. The statement I would leave with is ‘anything can happen’.”
Team Northumbria captain Sam Holt admitted that a poor start cost her team dear and revealed that the raucous fans directly affected her impact on the match. She said “Another big comeback there but still the same result as the first week, we still have a bit to work on, to make sure it doesn’t blow out in that first quarter. I don’t really know what it was, we just let them get in the flow of their game or whether it was the fact that they hadn’t won a game and that this was desperate for them, I’m not sure. The crowd was really loud, so personally I couldn’t use my strength in my dictation and talk throughout the game so that was a big influence, but we kept trying and kept changing our tactics and committing and we did come back so there are positives there.”
The Aussie defender provided inspiration for the Northumbria fight back as she directed the defence in a typically determined display. Reflecting on the encounter and looking further ahead, Holt remarked “I don’t like seeing a losing score line on the board so I am going to fight until the death. We became a lot more efficient, Jets started tiring and we started pushing through, but they were a lot more effective the first couple of quarters.
“We have got to take the positives from it, we play again in four days so it’s a quick turnaround, and it’s no use dwelling on it. We are definitely thinking we can beat a lot of teams in this competition, it’s very close; Thunder and Surrey are shining at the moment but by the time we get to them they are the last few teams we play in the round. Hopefully we would have seen a lot of them, looked at their tactics and we can try and combat that. We definitely go into every single game to win, unfortunately, we have only won one of three but we are there fighting.”