Revitalised Steel annihilates Pulse
IF possible, the Southern Steel has gone to yet another level.
It annihilated the Central Pulse 8044 in Porirua last night to equal the franchise-record-winning streak of 10 it set last year.
Having had the previous nine days off, the Steel was either going to come out rusty or reenergised.
It turned out to be the latter, as it dominated from the first whistle.
That the performance came against the secondplaced Pulse made it all the more impressive.
There was little in which the Steel did not excel.
The defence was suffocating, forcing turnovers and then playing with speed in transition to get the ball to its shooters.
Singling out an individual was no easy task, although goal keep Jane Watson was outstanding.
She had seven intercepts and 10 deflections, making everything a winner and proving a menace all night.
Steel coach Reinga Bloxham rated the performance a 9.2 out of 10 and, despite being thrilled, feels the team could still get better.
‘‘I think there were little errors that crept in, but I felt like our errors were so much lower than what they have been in previous games,’’ she said.
‘‘I thought our connections were really great and the other thing that I was really pleased with was our confidence.
‘‘You could just see that they had each other’s backs and they just went for it, which was great.’’
She felt the strong start, which set up the win, had come as a result of the work done over the nineday break.
In the majority of its games this year, the Steel has taken time to pull away from its opponents, making last night’s thrashing so eyecatching, by comparison.
‘‘I think we’ve had a really good week.
‘‘We were able to rest our bodies which was what we probably needed to do.
‘‘It’s been quite hectic so it was nice to have the longer turnaround.
‘‘And then we made sure we had a really good look at the Pulse because they’re a quality side and we definitely didn’t think that was going to happen tonight.
‘‘So we’d done our homework and we knew what we had to do and it just seemed that everything we did, we executed tonight
‘‘Our consistency was so much better than what it’s been.
‘‘I think once it sort of got up, our confidence just grew and it just kept going and going from there, so it was just so pleasing.’’
Everything seemed to go the Steel’s way in the first quarter.
It played with pace and fed the ball to its shooters with ease, often off three or four passes.
In the circle, Jhaniele Fowler-Reid and Te Paea SelbyRickit proved deadly.
They missed just three shots in that quarter, getting the rebound to finish on every miss.
FowlerReid went on to make 66 goals from 70 attempts, while SelbyRickit finished with 14 from 21.
Meanwhile, the Pulse imploded.
It began throwing wayward passes and turning ball over far too easily.
With the score at 2310 at quartertime, the game was all but over.
The Steel showed no mercy as it maintained its dominance and finished the half with a 4224 lead.
By threequarter time that was 6233, as the Steel held the Pulse to just nine goals, its lowestscoring quarter of the game.