Rest assured, Pulse won’t by rusty: Grant
With top spot secured in the national netball premiership, the Central Pulse are in the box seat.
After beating the Northern Stars on Monday, they can’t be passed on the ladder and will host the final on August 12.
They now have a full week before their last regular season match, at home against the Northern Mystics next Wednesday.
After that, they will have 10 days off, while the Mystics or the Mainland Tactix travel to play the Southern Steel in Invercargill in the preliminary final on August 8.
The winner of that match will then head to Wellington just four days later and their relative lack of rest could be their undoing.
When the Pulse last had 10 days between games, early on this season, they turned in their most dominant performance, thumping the Steel 71-40 in round four.
Captain Katrina Grant is taking that as a good omen ahead of the final, and is confident the Pulse won’t be rusty when the big occasion comes.
‘‘We still have good gameplay during the week when we have a [long] break. We’ve got a good Beko team who come play against us, and we can switch players in and out.
‘‘We know what we need to do, and when it comes to game day we know how to switch on.’’
The Pulse have lost matches to all three of their potential final opponents this season, but those three defeats came on the road, which is another reason why hosting the final is such a boost.
As Grant put it: ‘‘It’s like we’ve got that eighth player. Finals is a whole new ball game.
‘‘Everyone brings their A-game, no matter what. When you sit at the top of the table, other teams play their best against you, so every other team’s going to play their best weekin, week-out, and we’ve kind of been up and down in that sense.
‘‘When it comes to the Mystics [game] and the grand final, there’s no way we’re going to have a down, we’re going to go a hundy from here,’’ she said.
The Pulse never made the finals in nine seasons of trans-tasman netball, but since New Zealand and Australia went their separate ways, they’ve had a new lease on life.
Last season, they finished second on the ANZ Premiership ladder and beat the Mystics in the preliminary final, but in the decider they were no match for the Steel, who won convincingly to complete a perfect season.
Grant is one of four current Pulse players who started that game and she said the pain of that defeat was a strong motivator.
‘‘Last year we were in the grand final and it hurt a lot to lose.
‘‘We’ve had that experience – well, a few of us have – and this is our chance to redeem that.’’
When you watch the Pulse this season, one thing that stands out is their efficiency, with each player doing what is required of them and no more, the individual efforts combining to create a well-oiled machine.
Grant said that had been a strength of theirs – everyone sticking to their jobs and not trying to compensate for what was happening elsewhere.
‘‘If you’re in help-out mode, you can’t do your job, and that person can’t do their job, because you’re trying to help them out.
‘‘You need to do your job first and foremost, and if you’re doing that, other people can worry about theirs and then you can work together and get ball.
‘‘It’s really hard sometimes, just to stick to your job, because you always want to go into help-out mode if someone’s feeling down, if they’ve passed a couple of balls away, or something like that, but we’re about us doing our own job, and doing it for each other.’’