Netball: Silver Ferns given a quality workout

By JULIE ASH

Any concerns over Ruth Aitken having the right players in her Commonwealth Games squad were laid to rest last night when the Silver Ferns beat the New Zealand A team in Auckland.

In front of a sellout crowd at Unitec Stadium, her Silver Ferns beat a team which included the strongest candidates for selection, outside the chosen squad in the first of two matches.

The match was played over five 15-minute periods. The Silver Ferns led every quarter 16-12, 29-21, 52-32, 62-49 before winning 79-65.

Aitken changed her side at each break, giving every player court time. Their strongest performance came in the third quarter with Linda Vagana, Sheryl Clarke on defence, Lesley Nicol, Julie Seymour and Jenny-May Coffin in the midcourt and Donna Loffhagen and Irene van Dyk shooting.

NZ A fought back in the fourth quarter restricting the Silver Ferns to just 10 goals while scoring 17. The Silver Ferns seemed to lose their way without captain Seymour, who sat the quarter out as her team conceded 12 successive goals.

Tania Dalton, Angela Evans, Temepara Clark and Adine Harper - before she was subbed off injured in the second quarter - had strong games for the A side but by no means outplayed the incumbents.

Aitken said the match was a step up from the series against Barbados, but showed the Ferns need to work on performing for the whole 60 minutes.

"Some passages were very, very good but certainly that fourth quarter was not very good at all," she said.

"Certainly we made a lot of changes because I wanted to get everyone out there on court but we have to step up and have a bit more consistency."

New Zealand have less than two weeks before they leave for the Games in Manchester with tonight's second match against NZ A in Auckland being their last hit out.

Last night the stadium was full an hour before the match even started - indicating the interest in what will be New Zealand's last examination before the Games this month. Tonight's match is also sold out.

The game last night was initially only open to the New Zealand age group players here for their championships on the North Shore. However Netball New Zealand decided to sell the remaining seats to the public.

But they were caught out by the large turnout, who queued for tickets an hour before the start. The upshot was a number of fans were turned away.

* New Zealand A players Maree Grubb and Anna Scarlett will travel with the Silver Ferns to the Games.

Canterbury wing attack Grubb and Scarlett an Otago defender, will take no part in the Games but will enable the Silver Ferns to have enough players for two teams during training in Manchester.

Rules for the Games permit only 12 players to go, and the addition of Grubb and Scarlett has been done with an eye to the future.