No silver lining as Diamonds rout flat Ferns
In the space of six weeks, the Silver Ferns have gone from flying high to feeling low.
They crashed to a 58-42 loss against the Australian Diamonds yesterday in Sydney, which completed a 4-0 series whitewash for the hosts, and has left last month’s home win in Invercargill looking like a distant memory.
The last time the Silver Ferns lost four in a row to the Diamonds was late in 2014, at the end of a ninegame skid which began a year earlier, and included a one-sided loss in the final at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
Now, with the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games on the horizon next April, the Silver Ferns have a lot of work to do if they are to challenge for a gold medal.
‘‘It’s a little bit of a lot of things, more than any one thing in particular,’’ coach Janine Southby after the game, an analysis which brings to mind one of those philosophical what-ifs – would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?
Too many of those things are coming and going from game to game at the moment, which is to be expected, when you consider that the Ferns have lost a lot of experience in a short amount of time, but worrying, given that they don’t have long to get it right.
They have now gone five years without winning the Constellation Cup, and in losing all four tests, they didn’t get on the board for the second time in the series’ sevenyear history.
‘‘I guess for a while we weren’t getting the gains, and now we’re getting the gains, but we’re just not treasuring possession,’’ Southby said. ‘‘We all need to go and have a really good hard look at ourselves and we’ve got a lot of work to do over the next couple of months.’’
Southby made three significant changes to her starting seven yesterday – dropping star shooter Maria Tutaia to the bench for Te Paea Selby-Rickit; Gina Crampton for Kayla Cullen, who came in at wing defence, forcing Sam Sinclair and Shannon Francois to move up the court; and Kelly Jury for Temalisi Fakahokotau at the back.
The three new faces all deserved their promotions, which were perhaps overdue, given the form they had shown during their brief appearances in the first three games of the series.
Fakahokotau was the quickest to make an impact, hassling Diamonds shooter Caitlin Bassett early to win a pair of turnovers and help the Ferns go up 5-0 after three minutes.
But just as quickly as they had built that advantage, they lost it, and so the game turned into a grind for most of the opening spell, where Selby-Rickit scored all of the Ferns’ goals as they took a 13-12 lead – the first time they had been in front heading to the benches at any point in the series.
The tense nature of the match continued as the second quarter began, and it took almost three minutes for Selby-Rickit to net one and get the scoreboard moving again, but it was all Australia for a stretch after that.
The Diamonds opened up an 18-14 lead, and that was when Southby swapped Bailey Mes for Tutaia, who proceeded to pull the Ferns back within one with three quick goals.
It was 26-22 to the Diamonds at halftime, however, as they pulled away again to end the second quarter, with Caitlin Thwaites coming on for Bassett in the shooting circle and turning in an impressive performance, scoring 30 goals from 32 attempts.
Southby introduced Crampton for Sinclair as the third quarter began, and the margin remained at four for a while, as both teams’ play became riddled with errors.
But with six minutes to go in the spell, the Diamonds grew their lead by two to six, and went up 33-27, creating a gap that seemed to drain the Ferns’ energy.
The Ferns were behind by nine, 40-31 as the buzzer sounded, and there was no way back from there.