Steel coach seeks consistency
THE Southern Steel has had plenty of time for reflection, having entered uncharted territory.
The side will be back on the match court tomorrow night when it hosts the Magic at the Edgar Centre. It will be more than a week since its last game, when it fell to the Pulse 6251 in Palmerston North on May 7.
That was the first loss for the side since 2016, after it went through a perfect season last year.
Coach Reinga Bloxham said the week off had been useful and the team had not been idle.
‘‘It feels like quite a long time ago. But there has been a bit of reflection done by myself and the girls. Just looking at what happened against the Pulse and where we can improve,’’ she said.
‘‘We did make a lot of errors and there are things we need to work on. There has been reviews and a lot of analysis.
‘‘We made a poor start, which is uncharacteristic for us, and there was a lot of personal errors which crept into our game. For us it is about being consistent and that has been a big part of our game and we just didn’t do that. We just didn’t get a lot of gains from what we did. We have looked at our structures and our game plan and we had the right game plan but just did not execute it properly.’’
The side did get plenty of turnovers against the Pulse but had not been able to take advantage as it would lose the ball quickly.
She said many of the errors were fixable and the side was hungry to play after a week of training.
‘‘They are champing at the bit to get back on court and it feels like the girls have moved on. You learn a lot from a loss and that is the biggest thing for us is to make sure we get some learnings from it and what we can do better individually.’’
Captain Wendy Frew would continue her comeback from an Achilles injury but would not play a full game.
Bloxham said Frew recovered really well from the game against the Pulse and the match against the Mystics the day before but the injury had to be closely monitored and she would be on limited minutes.
Although the competition had only just started, Bloxham believed it was shaping up to be a close season.
Teams had not had a lot of time together before the competition began as the Silver Ferns had commitments, so would get stronger and grow combinations as the players spent more time with each other.
After a couple of games away from its base, Bloxham said the entire team was looking forward to being at home to take on the Pulse.
‘‘It is good to get away from home and play the game. But there is nothing better than playing at home, either Invercargill or Dunedin. Just the community support down here. They are the best supporters in New Zealand.’’