Battle of the Premier newbies

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

by Sherrill Beale

Premier Grade newbies YMP (2) and Farmlands Ngatapa lock horns in mid-week Premier Grade netball tonight in a match too hard to make a call on.

Two Gisborne Pak’nSave games are being held in the YMCA — Claydens Waikohu (1) v Gisborne Girls’ High Senior A at 6pm, followed by Ngatapa and YMP at 7.30pm.

The last time Waikohu and Girls’ High met, Waikohu made the better start and went on to win by nine goals.

The students were more settled from the second quarter on and stopped Waikohu from pulling ahead by too many goals.

They will need to start strongly tonight and play confidently for the full hour if they are to stop Waikohu’s flow.

Waikohu have been working nicely together as a team on attack and defence, evidenced in their big win over YMP (2) on May 27.

Ngatapa and YMP (2) will relish the prospect of playing each other for the first time as Premier Grade.

A thriller is on the cards.

When these two teams met before being promoted from Premier Reserve, YMP won by just two goals.

Another close contest can be expected tonight, especially as both will have targeted this game as a win after big losses to higher-seeded teams in the Premier Grade introductions.

Both displayed some good passages of play in those games and tonight get a grand opportunity to collect winning points against a team of similar seeding.

Both will have supporters out in full force, which will add to the excitement.