Plenty to work on for Steel
The Southern Steel have plenty to work on heading into their transtasman netball league semifinal showdown with the Queensland Firebirds tomorrow.
The southern netball franchise was slow out of the blocks when they lost 59-57 to the Waikato-bay of Plenty Magic in the NZ conference final in Invercargill last weekend, despite entering the game as hot favourites.
They got off to a nervous start, dropping the first quarter 19-13 and at one stage being 30-19 behind the Magic.
Steel coach Noeline Taurua is hoping her relatively young charges can rebound from their NZ conference final defeat for their Brisbane encounter.
‘‘Obviously us going over to Australia, you just have to take the punches and get on with it,’’ she said.
‘‘It was a real tester for us, going over to Australia is going to be difficult, but that is what sport is about. You have just got to get back on the horse.’’
Taurua realises the importance of experience at finals time.
‘‘Things won’t change but we were a bit like a deer in the headlights in that first quarter, and that is understandable given the inexperience of these girls,’’ she said.
‘‘But we didn’t take the game on and we suffered for that especially in the first quarter.’’
‘‘That is the experience you have to learn, we have another opportunity to take what we learned on Sunday.’’
The South Island franchise will need to make history if they are to topple the defending champions away from home.
A victory could not only provide the southern team a home grand final – if the Swifts beat the Magic in the other semifinal – but it would be their third win across the ditch ever.
But that’s not all, it would also be their first finals success in the competition and would inflict the Firebirds with their first finals series defeat at home.