Whakarewarewa Redz coach Carol Holt doesn't have too much to be unhappy about, especially when it comes to netball.
Her team had an impressive 56-39 win over their club's second team and is sitting in the top three of the Rotorua netball senior championships.
But what is impressing her more is the depth of netball she is seeing on the local scene and especially within their club. "I think the club has a reputation of drawing good players and probably it's a Maori club that welcomes anybody. It's got a good structure and has a good base of players and a lot of them are affiliated with the club."
Holt's side pretty much dominated the match and she said the club's future in netball looked bright with the depth of players both teams could put on the court.
Her side looked to dominate from the start of the match with the midcourt trio of Tiya Blake, Tawari Verco and Selina Rika, appearing to know what each other were going to do before they actually did it. However, the Diamonds midcourt, lead by centre Puarito Jennings, Christina Diamond and Ngawaea Taia were a constant thorn in the Redz side.
But the biggest factor in the match was the wind which played havoc on both sides' shooters.
It was the Redz who handled the conditions better taking a 10-7 lead after the first quarter. The second quarter saw the Redz lift their tempo, racing out to a 28-16 lead with goal attack Iri Matoe and Verco almost unstoppable on attack.
However, the third quarter belonged to the Diamonds with goal defence Aroha Haumaha and wing defence Ngawaea Taia shutting down a lot of the Reds' attack. Also Diamonds' goalshoot Hailey Houltham came into her own nailing a number of long range shots, while at the other end Keiha Pukepuke appeared to be struggling at times with her shots from just under the goal. The third quarter eventually ended with both sides scoring 11 goals each and the Redz up by 39-27.
The inclusion of Lynaire Williams at centre for the Reds for part of the third quarter and the rest of the final quarter, took some time to find cohesion but, once it did, it became a lethal combination across the court. Although the final quarter became quite a physical encounter the Redz managed to gain dominance once more running away with the final spell scoring 17 goals to the Diamonds' 12.
Holt said her side had taken a lot from the match and would look to build on it for their next encounter against John Paul College senior A next Saturday at 1.10pm. "We've got a few things to work on because those kids from JPC are tough. They play good clean netball. So yeah we'll just go back to the drawing board and tidy up some of the things we didn't do well today."