Pulse enjoy chance to put feet up

It’s not often the Central Pulse get to play with house money.

But no matter what turn their national netball premiership campaign takes from here, the Pulse can’t lose.

There’s nothing at stake for them now. Sure, being competitive women, they’ll want to win Sunday’s home elimination final and then go on and upset the Southern Steel in next week’s grand final. But it won’t matter if they don’t.

The pressure is entirely on the Steel, while there are likely to be red faces at the Northern Mystics and Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic too. The Pulse will host either the Mystics or Magic on Sunday, when they will enjoy the luxury of playing without fear of the consequences.

The Magic, particularly, and Mystics have enviable playoff pedigrees and every season that doesn’t end with a title is a disappointment. In ten seasons of trying, the Pulse have never progressed this far and rarely even threatened to either.

Well, they’re here now and should approach the opportunity with great excitement.

‘‘The first [goal] was definitely to make the top three. We thought that would’ve a good stretch and a good challenge,’’ Pulse head coach Yvette McCausland-Durie said.

‘‘Having a home semi now is massive and our thoughts are now fairly squarely on that. Of course we don’t know who we’re playing yet, but both of them will be tough opponents.’’

But hardly daunting ones. The Pulse won two of their three clashes with the Mystics this season, while 52-50 and 50-49 defeats to the Magic were followed by a rousing 62-45 win in their most recent encounter.

The Mystics are Sunday’s mostlikely opponent, but can be tipped out of the third and final playoff spot if the Magic can beat the Northern Stars by 16 goals or more in the final match of the round-robin season tonight.

The Pulse are relaxed about whether it ends up being the Mystics or Magic on Sunday.

‘‘They’re both equally good in parts and we’ve had good matches against both of them and, equally, we’ve had challenges against both of them,’’ said McCausland-Durie.

‘‘We’re quite comfortable either way with who we play. We know we’ve had good moments against both of them. We haven’t had complete performances against either team - so we know they’ve got the ability to challenge us and rock us but we feel confident that we’ve done it before.’’