Pulse won’t take Tactix lightly
There will be no complacency from the Central Pulse as they host the struggling Mainland Tactix in Wellington tomorrow.
The Pulse have made a strong start to their ANZ Premiership campaign, with a one-goal win in their competition opener, followed by a tense two-goal loss to the highflying Waikato-bay of Plenty Magic on Wednesday.
Prior to that game, the Magic had been in devastating form, including thrashing the Pulse’s next up opponents by 32 goals in their opening round match.
Despite feeling they could have beaten the Magic, the Pulse aren’t taking things lightly.
Captain Katrina Grant is expecting the Taxtix’s best game at TSB Arena.
‘‘I’ve been in the Pulse for a long time now and the Tactix always seem to bring their A game against us,’’ Grant said.
‘‘There’s a rivalry which has always just been there and they always come in absolutely firing whenever they’re in Wellington.
‘‘Things for them probably haven’t gone as well as they had hoped but I’m expecting them to really step up this week and we have to be ready for that.’’
The Tactix followed up their opening loss by suffering an 11-goal defeat at the hands of the new Northern Stars last Sunday.
They’ve had a week to ready themselves for their next encounter, where the Pulse have a short turnaround having played a Wednesday night game in Rotorua.
Far from being a bad thing, Grant thinks that will help the Pulse out.
‘‘It is a short turnaround but a loss is always quite hard to deal with, so when you can play as soon as possible after a loss, it’s good and means you can get out there and right the wrongs and work on the little things from the game before,’’ she said.
‘‘We’ll be wanting to improve from the Magic game. It was disappointing because we thought we could have won that game, so we’ll be taking to this Tactix game with the attitude of really showing what we’ve got.’’
Defensively, the Pulse were superb in their opening two matches. The Tactix have struggled to find the entrance to their hoop through the opening two rounds, so that combination could prove fatal to the visitors.
Grant said, being their first home game, they wanted to get a win and keep the team near the top of the standings early in the competition.
‘‘This weekend is our first home game so we desperately want to get a win under our belts,’’ Grant said.
‘‘First, it’s a home game and secondly, we want stay near the top of the leaderboard.’’
The Pulse play the Tactix from 2pm in Wellington tomorrow.