Diamonds get shine back fast
AUSTRALIA recovered from an early scare against Malawi to topple Jamaica 35-19 at the netball Fast5s World Series at Hisense Arena in Melbourne yesterday.
Shooter Caitlin Thwaites led the Diamonds in their comprehensive 16-point victory, using the multiple-point scoring zone with finesse to amass 16 individual points from her 10 goals and 13 attempts.
Thwaites slotted four twopointers, including one during Australia’s third quarter power play, where scores are doubled.
Heading into their second match, captain Susan Pettit urged Australia to improve their performance in the power play.
Her team responded and looked for maximum impact from the two-point “pink zone”, scoring 12 points to Jamaica’s six during double points, with shooters Erin Bell and Thwaites changing up their game to pass back and away from the post.
Australia defender Kate Shimmin said the Diamonds were satisfied with their second attempt at a power-play quarter.
“We just basically took the pressure off ourselves and treated it like any other quar- ter, I’m really happy with how we went. We really made an effort to make sure that we weren’t penalised as much,” Shimmin said.
Earlier, Australia claimed a nailbiting one-point 24-23 victory over Malawi in the tournament’s opening match.
Also on day 1, defending New Zealand survived to hang on in a tight 36-35 game against England.
Australia will round out the day’s play against holders New Zealand. The Diamonds are vying to become holders of all four international tournaments and have never won the Fast 5s World Series.