Netball: Silver Ferns now face job of staying on top

By RICHARD BOOCK

It might have taken the Silver Ferns more than a decade to get back to the top of world netball, but the question already being posed is how long can they stay there?

Having beaten the Australians by a combined total of 27 goals in their past two tests, New Zealand will head into Saturday night's Tri-Nations rematch as overwhelming favourites for the first time since the late 1980s, when the side were full of household names such as Sandra Edge, Rita Fatialofa and Wai Taumaunu.

Whatever edge the Ferns have occasionally had over Australia since then, nothing could compare with the gulf which materialised between the two teams at the weekend, when the world champions were not only destroyed by 15 goals - but destroyed at home.

Even allowing for the fact that the Australian shooters were having an off-day and New Zealand's Irene van Dyk was very much having an on-day, Jill McIntosh's side were also outplayed through the mid-court and, ultimately, were out-coached as well.

It was the unofficial end to a long and glorious reign, a period of perhaps a dozen years when Australia were considered the best team in the world, almost always started as favourite, and had three consecutive world championship trophies to prove their worth.

Now, albeit reluctantly, they have passed the unofficial No1 ranking on to New Zealand, who McIntosh agreed were the best team in the world.

"They're on a roll," she said. "There's a lot of experience in that team now and good on them.

"Now we've got to work hard and come back from this."

Australian captain Liz Ellis said her team's morale remained high.

"It's surprisingly good, given that we've just come off the back of a hiding," she said.

"The best thing about this is that we get to have another crack at them, unlike last time."

New Zealand are concentrating solely on their second Tri-Nations outing tonight in Canberra, against South Africa, but elsewhere interest is already starting to mount over Saturday night's re-match in Sydney.

Ferns coach Yvonne Willering said the best aspect of the win over Australia was the consistency in performance and the ability to achieve back-to-back wins, something she hoped would continue throughout the competition.

"Australia are capable of coming back but we certainly don't want them to," she said. "Although we were pleased with the effort in Melbourne, we definitely have plenty to work on and lots of things to tidy up, so we'll be concentrating on those areas.

"If we've achieved anything in the past year or so it's been our determination to look to our own game, to address our own issues and to harness our own talent.

"We concentrated more on that in South Africa last year and it paid dividends, and we're sticking to the philosophy."

She said that while the New Zealand bench might receive a little more game-time tonight against the Republic, she was not about to start subbing players "willy-nilly."

"We'll probably get a few more players on but I'm not just going to make substitutions for the sake of it. There'll be sound and relevant reasons for any changes we make."

For all that, New Zealand seem likely to give some game time to the four players who did not get on to the court on Saturday night, meaning a probable first test cap for specialist wing defence Vic Edward, and some more experience for defenders Vilimaina Davu and Sheryl Clarke, and mid-courter Jenny-May Coffin.

New Zealand: Bernice Mene (capt), Irene van Dyk, Donna Loffhagen, Belinda Colling, Adine Harper, Temepara George, Jenny-May Coffin, Lesley Nicol, Vic Edward, Sheryl Clarke, Vilimaina Davu, Linda Vagana.

South Africa: Bronwyn Bock (capt), Desmarie Kotze, Leana Du Plooy, Julene Meyer, Tanya Pelcher, Danlee Booysen, Zoliza Noxeke, Martha Mosoahle, Manzo Machoga, Elsje Jordaan, Rusky Mthethwa, Shani Weltagen.