Silver Ferns aim to make most of home advantage against Australia

As the Constellation Cup against the Australian Diamonds begins, it is time for the Silver Ferns to start making use of their home-court advantage.

Since the last Commonwealth Games, in Glasgow in 2014, the two teams have played 17 tests - nine in Australia, seven in New Zealand, and one in South Africa.

The Diamonds have won 12 of them and the Silver Ferns five, but only one on home soil - at the start of last month in Invercargill.

With matches in Auckland (tomorrow, first centre pass 7.30pm), and in Christchurch to begin the Constellation Cup which the Silver Ferns haven’t won since 2012 - there would be no better time than now to start consistently giving their home fans something to cheer about.

Shooter Maria Tutaia believes it is ‘‘absolutely vital’’ that they use their home matches to get off to a good start in the four-game series.

‘‘We want to be able to go in with full force,’’ she said.

‘‘We know that it’s going to be tough - Thursday, Christchurch [on Sunday], Adelaide [next Wednesday] and Sydney [next Saturday]. We’re aware of that, and that’s why we’ve got our antennas up.

‘‘We beat them last time [in Invercargill], but that doesn’t mean anything. We’ve got a lot of things that we need to work on and all the girls have really looked at themselves in the mirror and are really fighting for positions on court, which is a really healthy position to be in.’’

While their 57-47 win in Invercargill to claim the Quad Series title was impressive, the Silver Ferns are not allowing themselves to become complacent as they head into Thursday’s match.

‘‘If we are, then obviously things aren’t going to go well,’’ said Tutaia.

‘‘We know that they’ll have been training really hard, and hurting from the last match, but we know that we’ve got a lot of improvements to make as well.’’