English challenge ‘fantastic’
At a glance
What’s at stake for the Silver Ferns tonight is simple.
If they beat the England Roses at Claudelands Arena in Hamilton, they will take the upper hand into 2018, where the two are set for what could be a tournamentdefining meeting in pool play at the Commonwealth Games.
But if they are beaten, in the decider of the Taini Jamison Trophy, they will have lost a series to England for the first time, and they will be the ones playing catchup heading into next year.
Whatever the result, it is clear that England are closer to the Silver Ferns than they have been for most of their history.
‘‘I think it’s fantastic,’’ said Southby yesterday, about the challenge being offered by the Roses, who have beaten her side twice in the past month [once in the Quad Series] after managing just four wins in their previous 87 meetings, going back to 1963.
‘‘We need this, we really need this, and we’re embracing every opportunity we can to get challenged and tested. We want to know where our work-ons are, because we need to fix them, and I’d rather do this now than wait until a pinnacle event and only then find out we’ve got a lot of holes in what we do.’’
The Silver Ferns are a team undergoing a rebuild, with five of their 12-strong squad from the 2015 World Cup no longer around a little over two years later - Casey Kopua, Jodi Brown and Leana de Bruin have retired; Laura Langman is unavailable because of her decision to play in Australia; and Malia Vaka hasn’t been selected.
Whether that’s why the gap between them and England has closed, or whether it’s because their opponents have improved, Southby couldn’t say.
‘‘I guess everyone will have lots of different theories about that, but from our point of view, they’re a quality team, they’ve got quality players, and probably for the first time in a couple of years, they’ve got them all in the same place at the same time.
‘‘I never underestimate any team at this level. They’ll obvi- ously be really pleased with the progress they’re making.’’
Silver Ferns shooter Bailey Mes said that while England had done a good job of disrupting them so far in this series, her and the rest of the team had also been guilty of making too many mistakes themselves.
‘‘It kind of goes between the two. I think we are getting ball on defence, but we’ve just not been able to convert it, so it’s probably more our own mistakes.
‘‘But they are a very experienced side, so when they’ve got leads, they’ve been very good at keeping them,’’ Mes said.
It was only nine days ago that the Silver Ferns last came up trumps under pressure, in their win over the Australian Diamonds in the Quad Series decider, and Mes said they would draw on that performance as they look to bounce back from Sunday’s loss to England in Napier, which left this series deadlocked.
‘‘Every time we have a game like that, we want to remember what it feels like.
‘‘It’s just about getting those connections early, because we had a really good start in the game against Aussie. We’ve kind of been neck-and-neck with England until the last part of these games, so we definitely want to start well and just kind of build on that.’’