Plenty of unknowns for Silver Ferns to ponder

There are some things the Silver Ferns know, and there are some things they don’t.

They play South Africa tonight in Hamilton in the second match of the Quad Series.

The Ferns have won 26 of the 27 test between the teams so far while the one loss came at the 1995 world championship.

But while they will head into the game knowing a win is likely, they will also be up against a side they don’t know much about.

New Ferns coach Janine Southby said as much after training on Monday, though she also revealed they do have a bit of an idea what to expect.

‘‘We haven’t seen a lot, we’ve got the footage from their game the other night [against Australia], we’ve got footage from last year. We know that their shooting circle’s pretty accurate and they’re happy to shoot long, so we certainly know there’s some work [for us to do] in that space,’’ she said.

‘‘We know their middies can be quite unorthodox and they’re also quite fit, and they do things a little bit differently. So our middies have to be prepared for that. And defensively, they’ve got a couple of really tall defenders with long arms, and we can’t get caught up in that aerial game, because that brings them into it.’’

Faced with a few unknowns, what’s important is for the Ferns to focus on their own game, and get themselves in tune for what is likely to be a series decider against Australia in Melbourne on Sunday.

‘‘We’re really trying to keep the focus on ourselves, that’s the big thing,’’ Southby said.

‘‘The ability to stay in the moment, read it and play what’s in front of us. We want confident players who make great decisions out there. And those decisions will change for every situation. So from a coaching point of view, it’s our job to work with the players to build their confidence and put them in situations that they do feel confident to be able to do that.’’

While beating England by 26 goals in their first match of this era was a great result, there was still plenty for the Ferns to improve on, Southby said.

‘‘People may have expectations of us now, but from our point of view, while we’re happy with the outcome, there’s some parts of the way we did things that we’re not particularly pleased with, so there’s certainly some work in that space.

‘‘I think there was a few connection, pass placement at times was pretty poor, just reading what was happening and the type of pass we gave to someone put our- selves under a bit of pressure at times. And defensively we didn’t put enough pressure on through the court.’’

Against South Africa then, the trick will be to continue building on the performance against England while trying to give some of the squad’s less-experienced members some game time.

‘‘In an ideal world that would be fantastic to be able to do that [give debuts], but again, we have to lay really strong foundations for those things to happen,’’ Southby said.