West Coast's Verity Charles in action in the one-goal loss to the NSW Swifts. Photo: West Coast Fever Twitter
The West Coast Fever came home in a flurry, but they fell one goal short of the NSW Swifts at John Cain Arena in Melbourne.
Alice Teague-Neeld and Sasha Glasgow shot with confidence and put up four supershots between them to close out the match.
However, the Swifts were too consistent and took the one-goal win in Maddy Proud’s 100th league game.
It had been a strange build-up to the match at an empty John Cain Arena. West Coast relocated to Melbourne on Tuesday to keep the Super Netball season alive.
Speaking after the close loss, coach Stacey Marinkovich thought it was a quality match, but her team was inconsistent in producing their brand of netball.
“You saw big shifts of momentum at different points.
I thought the Swifts did a really good job in terms of the way in which they confused space. Their unit defence I thought controlled areas of the court at different stages, which we needed to identify and use our skill a bit better.
“Then in attack they’re a team that’s very well drilled in the way they keep possession of the ball and you saw that on the last minute and 15 seconds,” Marinkovich said.
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The Fever had a strong opening term, creating turnover opportunities and converting.
It fell away from there though, as the Swifts started controlling the court and moved their way in front.
At half-time, Marinkovich said the team had work to do in adapting to the Swifts ball movement.
“We had to recognize what the Swifts were actually doing out on court. They pretty much had the game on their terms in that second quarter.
“We had to be able to shift that. We needed to take the game on, take the movement and make sure we had great variation in what we were doing. I just thought we became a bit predictable and then we became a bit hesitant.
“Defensively, we needed to step up, stay in the play and make sure that accumulation of pressure resulted in an impact opportunity,” Marinkovich said.
Alice Teague-Neeld was injected into the game in the third quarter and shot confidently, as her team charged home.
Marinkovich also brought Sasha Glasgow back onto the court in the final minutes to try and steal a victory.
“I see it in the training environment quite regularly, so you put out combinations knowing they’ve done the work in the background.
“It’s great to be able to have that versatility and they knew their role to be able to go out and execute when it counted.
“I think for us, it was just that consistency of execution,” Marinkovich said.
As for what’s next, Marinkovich said you cannot assume anything at the moment.
“We just sit tight and make sure we do all our recovery, do our review as normal and we know that will have our training regime – it’s just whether it’s in Melbourne or whether we get to go home,” Marinkovich said.
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