Long finals wait is over for Highlanders
ish. Emanuel paid tribute to midcourter Brooke Williams for helping lift Highlanders into the finals after the Samoa co-captain returned to the side for their 43-39 win over Phoenix on Monday night.
“She was an integral part of getting us into the top half of the ladder early in the season … there’s no one better that I’d have leading the team than Brooke Williams,” the coach said. “She’s come back to a grassroots game of netball and she plays with the same passion and pride as what she’d play for the (Northern) Rays or Samoa. It lifts the players around her and it lifts me as a coach. She’s such an inspirational person.”
Highlanders have been assured of a top four spot for a few weeks now, but Emanuel was impressed with their effort to hold out Phoenix 43-39 in their last game of the regular season.
“Phoenix literally had nothing to play for, but just came out and played hard,” he said.
“We probably could have rolled over and thought ‘we’re in the top four, it doesn’t matter’, but the competitive nature of both teams just shows that netball at this level is in a good place.”
In the other Round 21 games, Neptunes claimed an important 58-51 win over second-placed Saints while minor premiers Burdekin overcame Marian-vixens 55-36.
Burdekin will now take on Saints at Townsville Stadium this Monday night for a spot in the grand final while Neptunes and Highlanders meet in the knockout semi-final.
Highlanders beat Neptunes by 20 goals back in March, but Emanuel said their main focus was just to be competitive against the two-time premiers with the pressure of a finals game.
“We’ve got a very young and probably still inexperienced side. When you talk about playing our first ever finals everyone’s inexperienced — me included,” he said. “We can’t get caught up in the moment and let them dictate too much, but we’ve just got to worry about our own game.”