Netball: Flames' on-form Davu ignites team to victory

By RICHARD BOOCK

The Shakers' national netball league title hopes have run aground on a Canterbury rock named Valimaina Davu.

The Wellington-based Shakers bowed out of Coca-Cola Cup contention yesterday after outstanding goal-keep Davu led the Canterbury Flames to a runaway 50-35 win in the second semifinal in Christchurch.

The Flames will now travel to Invercargill for Saturday night's final against the defending champion, the Sting, who outpointed the Force 48-44 in the first semifinal after a hair-raising tussle at Stadium Southland on Friday night.

However, suggestions Irene van Dyk's eye-catching shooting would have the Shakers making the trip south instead proved wide of the mark when Davu - the 1.90m-tall Fijian captain - out-muscled and out-hustled her opponent during a physical showdown at Cowles Stadium.

In front of another sellout crowd, Davu restricted van Dyk to a modest 24 goals from 30 attempts, including just two goals in the second quarter as the Flames broke down the Shakers' attack end and gradually seized the initiative.

Having fought back to level the scores at 10-10 at the first-quarter break, Margie Foster's Flames took the second quarter by five to lead 22-17 at half-time, and managed to extend that by one in the third period before storming to the final whistle with a 14-5 flourish.

Canterbury's defensive strength was the key to their dominance, and while the 23-year-old Davu was the standout performer, Silver Fern Belinda Blair turned in another street-wise effort at goal-defence and Anna Veronese ran herself to a standstill at wing-defence.

Things were not quite as efficient for the Flames at the other end of the court, but goal-attack Angela Evans kept hitting the shots that counted, and worked intelligently in tandem with goal-shoot Sonia Butler.

Foster said afterwards that the Flames had been inspired by the Crusaders' Super 12 triumph the previous night, and were determined to demonstrate the same never-say-die qualities when they ran out against the Shakers.

Speaking in a sort of Rod Stewart rasp after shouting herself hoarse, Foster was delighted with the defensive intensity throughout the four quarters and said the subsequent pressure had proven a match-winning ingredient.

Meanwhile, Force captain Teresa Tairi was furious with the umpiring in Invercargill after her side's narrow loss against the Sting on Friday night.

The Force initially quieted a vocal Southland crowd with an impressive start and were level at 35-35 at the three-quarter mark, before finding themselves on the end of what Tairi described as some "mystifying" calls from umpires Kirsten Lloyd and Jan Teesdale.

"I'm sure that crowd got to them in the final quarter," Tairi said of the umpires. "They just changed like that, and made a couple of critical calls - completely at odds with what they had been calling earlier."