Star-studded Pulse loom as favourites
THE world might be vastly changed from Covid-19, but the Central Pulse remain the team to beat in the ANZ Premiership.
New Zealand’s flagship netball competition resumes on Friday after a 95-day hiatus, with only the opening round possible before the global pandemic halted play.
After training on their own during lockdown, then back with team-mates again in recent weeks, New Zealand’s top netballers are champing at the bit for meaningful games.
Teams will play their remaining 14 round games, but the schedule has been compacted into a twomonth window. Sides will have to play two games per round, and matches across consecutive days, at various points of the competition.
Games will be played at the Auckland Netball Centre in Mt Wellington, but there is hope some later rounds could possibly be held at team home venues.
A novel feature of the truncated premiership will see games contested over 12-minute quarters and 48 minutes, rather than the usual 60 minutes.
Only the top two sides after round-robin play qualify for the August 23 final, which means teams can ill afford a slow start.
The defending champion Pulse demonstrated their class in the opening round in midMarch, overcoming the Mainland Tactix 53-41, and will again be title favourites.
The sides were level at halftime (22-22), but the Pulse blew the Tactix off the court in the second half with a 31-19 onslaught.
With Silver Ferns captain
Ameliaranne Ekenasio and Aliyah Dunn in the shooting end, the reliable Claire Kersten anchoring the midcourt, and a back three of Silver Ferns Karin Burger, Katrina Rore, and Kelly Jury, the Pulse ooze quality through the court.
The Pulse will be looking to make full use of their talented roster.
‘‘It’s important to have that depth within the 10 and certainly in the double-headers we will have to look carefully at managing player load, so I feel really blessed with the 10 players that we have,’’ coach Yvette McCausland-Durie told the Pulse website. ‘‘They have faith in each other to do the job and we have faith in them, so that’s a really good space to be
in.’’
The Pulse open with a rematch of last year’s premiership final against the Northern Stars next Sunday.
Traditional rivals, the Northern Mystics and WaikatoBay of Plenty Magic, re-launched the restart of the competition on Friday night.
Both sides were round one winners with the Mystics edging the crosstown Stars 59-55, on the back of 40 goals from teen shooting sensation Grace
Nweke.
The Magic overcame the Southern Steel 54-48 in front of an empty stadium in Dunedin after restrictions around mass gatherings were brought in just hours before the game.
The Mystics’ title prospects have been hurt by a seasonending injury to Silver Ferns shooter Bailey Mes, who underwent knee surgery on May 1.
Nweke, 18, will shoulder the shooting load alongside youngsters Saviour Tui and Mes’s replacement Asher
Grapes.
‘‘It’s a bit weird, because it’s only my first full season,’’ Nweke told the Mystics website. ‘‘But it’s almost exciting to have this opportunity to show what we can do as the youngest combination in the league.’’
The Mystics were already without Silver Ferns defender Michaela Sokolich-Beatson after she ruptured her right achilles tendon in England in January.
The Stars and Tactix have doubleheaders this weekend.