Steel torn to pieces by Pulse
IT is a long time since the Southern Steel has been dealt a hiding like that.
The side was torn to pieces by a master class from a rampant Central Pulse in Porirua last night.
After 10 minutes, the Steel trailed 154, a scoreline which grew to 7140 at the final buzzer.
The win followed the Pulse’s 6251 triumph when the sides met three weeks ago and was another indicator of the earlyseason power shift in the ANZ Premiership.
Indeed, almost a year ago to the day, it was the Steel which delivered an 8044 annihilation of the same opponent at the same venue.
However, this time it was the unbeaten Pulse which brought intensity and a relentless mindset.
Its defensive duo of Katrina Grant and Sulu Fitzpatrick was everywhere, the midcourt trio of Whitney Souness, Karin Burger and Claire Kersten slick and energetic.
At the other, end the Pulse barely made a mistake. It looked after the ball, threading it through a scrambling Steel defence and easily getting it to its dominant teenage shooting duo.
Goal shoot Aliyah Dunn proved a reliable target, shooting 50/54 and ably paired with goal attacks Tiana Metuarau and later Ameliaranne Ekenasio.
The Steel shooters’ accuracy was perhaps not quite as bad as the scoreline would make out. Their shooting percentage of 71% was hardly startling.
But it was the Pulse’s 85 shots compared to the Steel’s 56 that was the most telling number. The Steel simply could not get the ball into scoring position enough.
It was a performance that left the team disappointed and coach Reinga Bloxham said it just did not execute well enough.
‘‘We thought that we’d prepped properly,’’ she said.
‘‘We had the right mindset. We felt we had the right plan, but we didn’t quite execute it.
‘‘We had far too many errors. We weren’t looking after the possesion we already had; we couldn’t score off centre pass.’’
After jumping out to a quick lead, the Pulse kept its foot down.
The Steel was able to keep it at 2816 midway through the second quarter, but the Pulse scored 10 in a row and led 3817 at halftime.
A better third quarter had things at 5331 going into the final break, but it was always far too late. If possible, things got worse in the final quarter, and not just on the scoreboard.
Midcourter Dani Gray, who had only come on at the start of the quarter, fell after her left knee buckled upon landing four minutes from the end of the match.
She was subsequently carried off the court in obvious discomfort. She will undergo an MRI scan to determine what she had done, although Bloxham said it was not looking great.