KEY POINTS:
Northern Mystics coach Yvonne Willering has been left wondering what her side must do to catch a break in the ANZ Championship after a costly blunder from match officials robbed them of another win.
Lady Luck was again not on the Mystics' side in round 11 as the Auckland franchise suffered a gut-wrenching one-goal loss to the Adelaide Thunderbirds.
Having been the authors of their own misfortune in the opening half of the competition, the Mystics finally seemed to have got their act together and produced a strong performance against the competition heavyweights, only to be once again undone by poor officiating.
In round 10 against the Swifts, it was a dubious penalty against Vilimaina Davu which gave Catherine Cox a chance to level the score after time was up on the clock. This week the Thunderbirds were awarded an extra centre pass-off in their 47-46 win.
Centre Natalie von Bertouch was called for held ball immediately before halftime, but the Thunderbirds were still awarded the first pass-off after the break. Willering was only able to query the call at the end of the match and was up at the scorebench questioning the decision as soon as the fulltime whistle sounded, but by then it was too late.
"The indication had been given to me that there had been a held ball called just before halftime, in which case it should have been our centre pass-off," she said.
"It's really hard for us to question it at the time because they've got scorers, timekeepers and everybody else all busy doing their own thing and you're not really in a position to start questioning all those aspects of the game, but at the end of the game it's too late."
Willering was also disappointed the umpires didn't keep a better handle on the aggressive marking of the visitors.
The Thunderbirds' tough man-on style of defence drew plenty of whistle, but Willering thought more needed to be done to deter the Adelaide side from repeatedly infringing.
"At times it would have been good if the umpires had stopped the game and said 'look, let's tone it down, let's just play netball'.
"The calls were made so I'm not questioning that at all, it just slows the game down, really, and they needed to control that better."
With her side coming out on the right side of the ledger, Thunderbirds coach Jane Woodlands was in a position to be a more pragmatic about the umpiring.
She thought her side coped with the New Zealand style of umpiring a lot better than some of the Australian franchises. "It is difficult to umpire when one team is one on one all the time and the other is playing a zone. We appreciate that and I thought we did adjust as best we could."
The Thunderbirds' win was the first of three matches over the weekend to be decided by one point. The NSW Swifts dealt the Queensland Firebirds their third straight loss with a 61-60 win.
Canterbury Tactix farewelled their home town fans with heart palpitations when beating Central Pulse 50-49 in extra time last night. The scores were locked 41-41 at the end of regular time.
