Plenty of work ahead for promising Ferns
As her first game in charge of the Silver Ferns began on Saturday night in Auckland, new coach Janine Southby was making sure to keep her focus.
Less than two hours later, it was all said and done, with the Ferns beating England 65-39, an impressive start to their new era and the new Quad Series tournament.
But for Southby, it took a little while longer for the result and the meaning of the occasion to sink in.
‘‘I just tried to keep it really real for me from a coaching point of view, and just stay focused on what I need to do,’’ she said.
‘‘I didn’t want to get too caught up in it, because I thought if you get too caught up in it and get too emotional, you don’t think clearly. The big thing for me was just keeping in the moment.
‘‘I had a chance to reflect on it later on Saturday night, and that was really nice at that point.’’
As first games go, a 26-goal win has to be up there with the best of them, and Southby said she was pleased with the result, even if it was hopefully just the first of many more to come.
‘‘It’s still early days and we’ve got lots to work on. It probably sounds a bit boring to people when they hear coaches say that, but we’re just at the start of what we’re trying to achieve, and we know we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.’’
Sunday’s showdown with Australia in Melbourne already looms large as the likely series decider, but before then, the Ferns must take care of South Africa in Hamilton on Wednesday.
The Norma Plummer coached outfit lost 68-43 to Australia in their first game of the series, but Southby and the Ferns won’t be taking them for granted.
‘‘I know it sounds really cliched, but we can never afford to get ahead of ourselves,’’ she said.
‘‘Saturday’s result was fantastic, but we can’t just walk out there on Wednesday night and expect the same thing to happen. It’s about going back to the drawing board and staying real and focused on what we need to achieve and just playing one play at a time.
‘‘South Africa would have learnt a lot from what happened with them (on Saturday), and what’s probably the reality for them is that they don’t play at this level very often.
‘‘They will have done a lot of learning and we know they’ll come out pretty fired up. Any team that has Norma coaching, I have a huge amount of respect for.
‘‘From the little bits I caught on Saturday, they’ve certainly got some talented shooters who are very accurate, and they’ve got some experienced players in the group who are very determined.
‘‘They got some ball off Australia, so they won’t be walking in there and putting their hands up raising white flags.’’
Experienced defender Anna Harrison will miss the South Africa game, as she recovers from the calf injury she suffered last week, but is still in contention to play Australia on the weekend.