It should surprise no one that Central Pulse remain a lonely last after their latest outing in the transtasman netball league yesterday.
The Wellington-based side slumped to their ninth consecutive defeat this season when going down to Canterbury Tactix at Te Rauparaha in Porirua.
Canterbury Tactix set out their stallearly as immaculate shooting from Jodi Brown and Angela Mitchell carried them to a 15-11 advantage in the opening quarter. Goal shoot Brown and goal attack Mitchell did not miss an attempt between them during this period and, although the misses inevitably came, the flood of ball coming their way enabled the southerners to pull clear.
The Pulse seriously lacked some tall timber in the circle to challenge the Tactix, while their turnover rate was such that the visitors had the issue settled by halftime. The Tactix led 34-23 at the main interval, at which stage Pulse goal attack Paula Griffin had outscored her goal shooting partner Te Amo Amaru-Tibble 12-11.
That unusual trend lasted the entire match as Griffin worked to help out her heavily marked colleague.
Despite being talked up by some commentators, the Pulse again failed to flatter, their shortcomings being exposed by a Tactix team posting just their third victory of the season.
Two of those wins have come against the competition stragglers but yesterday's success was much superior to the 49-46 scoreline enjoyed by the Tactix over the Pulse just two weeks ago.
The ease of the win was evident at the third quarter break when Tactix coach Helen Mahon-Stroud had the luxury of benching Mitchell and workaholic wing attack Maree Bowden and replacing them with Anna Thompson and Phillipa Finch.
The change in personnel barely interrupted the Tactix's flow as they ran away with the game, losing Brown midway through the last stanza to a minor ankle problem.
Brown left the game after having made an invaluable contribution, shooting at 90 per cent accuracy.
Pulse captain Cushla Lichtwark was frank in her appraisal of her team's performance.
"There are obviously still a lot of lessons to be learnt," she said. "We didn't put our best game out on court and you have to in this competition."
Her Tactix counterpart Julie Seymour was impressed how her players all shone at various times.
"Different people at different times did some great stuff."
