David Legatt: Old rivals in frenetic hour of top-notch entertainment

COMMENT

Sport dispenses delight and despair in roughly equal measure.

Just ask the Force and Diamonds goal shoot Shelley Norris after yesterday's thrilling clash at North Shore Events Centre.

The Force won a nailbiter 53-51, a result that opens up the strong likelihood of making the top four semifinals. The Diamonds are still mathematically alive, but need to rely on other results going their way. So you could say there was a bit riding on the game.

Add into the mix:

* The Auckland crosstown rivalry.

* A vociferous crowd of about 4000.

* The fact that several players have appeared for both teams at different times, which seems to add an extra measure of intensity.

* A generous dollop of bump and crash.

The ingredients were all there for a tasty contest.

And so it proved. The Force have never lost to the Diamonds in seven years of the National Bank Cup. Twice the Diamonds have got within four points.

This was the closest they've come to what would be their sweetest three points in the league.

It's hard to say the Diamonds deserved victory yesterday. Teams who score more points than their opponents deserve to win games for just that reason. But you couldn't help having a small twinge of sympathy for the visitors.

For most of a hectic, robust scrap the Diamonds had their noses in front. At one point the margin was five goals but it was invariably no more than a couple.

With experienced hands like Kathryn Harby-Williams and Lorna Suafoa strong at the back and Silver Ferns Anna Rowberry and Victoria Edward charging through the midcourt, expectation grew as the clock wound down that this would be the day.

Watching the coaches can be instructive at times like this.

The Diamonds' Joan Hodson could have been sitting watching a movie for the bulk of the first three quarters so well does she contain her emotions. Down the other end, the Force's old stager, Yvonne Willering, has been through this sort of deal a hundred times, but it doesn't get any easier. She does not do calm and phlegmatic.

Neither did a boisterous crowd. Not all of them were armed with those blowup batons you get at big indoor events these days. Only about 3900 of them. And as the clock ticked down so the volume was racheted up until with a minute left the Force led 52-51, the Diamonds in possession.

The ball reaches Norris almost under the hoop. Norris, at 34, former Tall Fern, mother-of-five in her first NBC season, had done a sterling job for the Diamonds. She'd bagged 43 out of 48 shots, kept her nerve, kept her team on target. This time, the ball went up, bobbled about, and came out. It flew down the other end where Force goal shoot Daneka Wipiiti coolly potted a long-range effort to seal the win.

Norris' scrunched-up face told the story. Her leg was likely hurting from a previous tumble but a degree in psychiatry was not required to work out what was running through her mind at that moment.

It was top-notch entertainment, a frenetic hour that left one set of players clasping each other with an equal mix of relief and jubilation, the other left to dwell on the likelihood of missing the business end of the competition for the fifth straight year.