Netball: Furious Ferns accuse umpire

KINGSTON - The Silver Ferns were left seething by a local umpire who they say damaged their chances of wrapping up the series against Jamaica in Kingston yesterday.

Jamaica rebounded from their 46-44 first-test loss on Sunday with a 53-44 win in the second.

The decider will be played tomorrow afternoon.

Usually keen to play down controversy, the New Zealanders were for once openly fuming at some of the unfathomable decisions Jamaican umpire Dalton Hinds dished out as he penalised the Silver Ferns heavily throughout the match.

Although not wanting to detract from Jamaica's fine performance, the Silver Ferns felt they were never given the chance to contest the match on an even footing.

"I felt so emotional about the situation I just wanted to take the players off the court to make a stand," Silver Fern captain Julie Seymour said.

"Things were just out of our control, he was blatantly biased.

"I truly believe that the standard was disgusting.

"I'm not saying we're perfect - we've still got so much of our game to work on and Jamaica did some fantastic things.

"I don't want to take anything away from that, but we want to know who's appraising these umpires and who's keeping them up to a standard.

"You expect to have top umpires when you're out there in your sport, otherwise you're just fighting against a brick wall."

Hinds and New Zealand umpire Kirsten Lloyd controlled the game.

Debate over neutral umpires for international netball matches has been around for a long time, and is likely to gain further momentum after yesterday's events.

The Silver Ferns were penalised on the first six occasions they got the ball into the Jamaicans' circle, and that set the tone for the match as Jamaica scored four times without reply.

Ace shooter Irene van Dyk was caned most in the penalty count - nine times, for either stepping or contact.

Van Dyk is not known for over-abusing the rules and a netballer of her standing does not infringe that many times in such an important game.

The run of play meant the Silver Ferns were always starting over again and never got the chance to gather any flow or rhythm.

Jamaica built on their excellent start and grew even bolder as the match progressed, which made it harder for the Silver Ferns to make an impression.

Leading the charge for the home team was captain Elaine Davis, who was in inspiring form.

The Silver Ferns did not maintain a tight through-court defence, which allowed Davis to be fed a ton of expertly timed ball.

The 1.9m goal-shoot displayed her excellent aerial ability and ball skills as she potted goal after goal to the frustration of the New Zealanders.

Umpiring decisions affected the Silver Ferns throughout and they became more hesitant and error-prone.

The loss was their first against Jamaica.

"This is really awesome and so good for Maureen [Hall, the Jamaica coach],"an ecstatic Davis said.

"She's smiling, we did it for her."

"We knew we could do it. We kept our heads and stuck to our strengths."

The Silver Ferns made spasmodic rallies but could not sustain them for long enough to be a real threat as Jamaica led 13-10 at the first break, 29-20 at halftime and 40-34 at three-quarter time.

Silver Ferns coach Ruth Aitken stuck to her tour tactic of using all 12 players throughout the game, but none of the combinations could deliver what was needed to close the deficit.

Adine Harper added some spark to the forward line when she came on at wing-attack in the second half, but the umpire continued to play a dominant role in thwarting New Zealand's intentions.

Jenny-May Coffin and Sheryl Clarke were the two players not included in the playing 12.

"We knew that Jamaica would come back at us and we were pretty committed to lifting up another notch," Aitken said.

"That didn't happen for a whole lot of reasons.

"Certainly, our flow was disrupted by the calls that we weren't used to, but we just have to get over it and get on with it."

The Silver Ferns' bench gave up keeping a record of the statistics, because there were too many of them.

Umpire Hinds said he was happy with his form.

An umpire for 15 years - although at what level was not clear - Hinds said he felt good about his game.

He said he was not distracted by the deafening noise of the crowd roaring the home team on.

He treated umpiring like a job and one to be taken very seriously, "so when I come to work I'm just working."

On the question of pulling the Silver Ferns up for so many stepping infringements and a lot of things they do not normally do, the Jamaican whistler said it was his interpretation and he pulled players up for what he saw.

"And I'm quite happy with that," he said. "I blew what I saw."

Hinds said he did not feel the series so far had been physical enough to warrant warning any players of over-aggressive play, although he did step in yesterday for words with Jamaican goal-defence Nadine Ffrench after she hit van Dyk in the face.

- NZPA