Steel switch focus to Pulse

The Southern Steel have known for weeks that they would be hosting the national premiership netball league final on June 28, but they are pleased to finally find out their opponents.

The ANZ Premiership minor premiers sat and watched the Central Pulse edge the Northern Mystics 59-52 in the elimination final in Wellington yesterday, as a team together in order to analyse their rivals.

‘‘It was quite a close, tight game and for us it is quite good to know who we are playing, now we can focus on the Pulse,’’ Southern Steel coach Reinga Bloxham said.

‘‘We feel we do our homework reasonably well, we will have another look at the game and see if there are any areas we can target and improve on and go from there.’’

The Steel were too strong for the Pulse, winning 64-51 when the two teams met in the final round of the regular season a week ago, but coach Bloxham is well aware of the tough nature of finals netball, especially a year after the unbeaten Steel lost the ANZ Championship NZ conference final to the Magic.

‘‘When it is finals netball everything is on the line,’’ she said.

‘‘I think everybody steps it up to that next level so I think the expectations of what teams are like prior to finals has to be looked at and knowing everyone is going to play, it is sort of do-or-die stuff so they are just going to put what they can into each game.

‘‘I think with the nature of the competition we have played each team three times, so I suppose that element of thinking you know what each team has to bring, but I think what you have to remember going into finals is that each team is just going to throw absolutely everything they can at you, so I suppose you have to have that element of surprise for the final.’’

The Steel trained as usual over the weekend, with the southern netball franchise still sweating on the injured duo of captain Wendy Frew and goal Selby-Rickit.

‘‘Obviously they are tracking really well, we are still monitoring them day-by-day, at this stage they are meeting the targets we had sort of hoped they would be, so as far as we are concerned they are on track on where they should be,’’ she said.

The Pulse, playing in the playoffs for the first time, withstood a sensational individual display by Mystics skipper Maria Tutaia, to claim a thrilling victory at Wellington’s TSB Bank Arena yesterday.

As ever with Tutaia, the bulk attack Te Paea were from distance too, as she almost single-handedly engineered a 30-28 halftime lead for the Mystics.

The visitors maintained a one or two-goal advantage for much of the third quarter, until the Pulse went 43-42 up inside the final two minutes.

Tutaia finally had a miss, as the Pulse quickly established a fivegoal lead. Both teams were desperate by this point and the turnovers mounted.

Metuarau and Tuivaiti did fantastically well to enable the Pulse to hold the advantage and they finished worthy winners.