English Roses prove thorny
● England are calling the shots at SA’s house party in the Mother City.
The England Roses arrived in town this week with an experimental side and a new coach in Jess Thirbly but they are dictating terms to their hosts in this Spar Challenge International Netball Series.
They wrapped up the series, with a game to spare, following a hard fought 59-53 victory at Bellville Velodrome yesterday and will want to complete a whitewash today.
They started the series with a hard-fought 63-58 extra-time win over the Netball Proteas on Friday and continued to impress even though they were made to work for victory.
As a result of this victory England have increased their dominance over SA as they have beaten them for the fourth time after five meetings this year including a World Cup pool match and semifinal.
At the end of a competitive first quarter, England led by four goals (16-12) and that
The England team will want to complete a whitewash today
was largely because of the many chances SA squandered and some defensive errors.
After the first game on Friday SA coach Dorette Badenhorst lamented that they did not keep possession and their leads were not strong and those proved a problem again.
Though Lenize Potgieter was impressive with her finishing and accounted for 11 of the 12 goals that the Proteas scored in the opening quarter, her attacking partner Lefebre Rademan squandered a number of opportunities.
On the other hand, the England Roses were relentless with their attacks as they made the SA defensive duo of Phumza Maweni and Shadine van der Merwe work overtime.
England continued to dominate proceedings and they went to the halftime break with a slender lead of two goals (29-27) leaving SA with lots of work to do in the remaining two quarters.
To try to put pressure on England, coach Badenhorst replaced struggling goal attacker Rademan with Sigrid Burger to partner Potgieter up front but the move did not have the desired effect.
England ended the third quarter still leading by two goals (43-41) and they did enough to win the highly contested match and render today’s final clash a dead rubber.
SA, for whom coach Badenhorst used a number of combinations in the opening two matches, will have to produce an improved performance to avoid the ignominy of being whitewashed at home.