Netball: Silver Ferns still on top of the world

By JULIE ASH in Christchurch

It wasn't exactly the prettiest of games but the Silver Ferns kept their world champion title intact, beating Australia 54-45 in the opening test in Christchurch last night.

In an extremely physical encounter the Silver Ferns surged ahead in the last quarter to claim one of their biggest wins over their rivals in recent years.

While the match was a typical, intense transtasman battle, it was riddled with errors from both sides.

"I was pleased with the margin but there is a lot to work on," said Silver Ferns coach Ruth Aitken.

"I think our timing was off tonight. I think that we needed to make quicker adjustments to the strong one-on-one marking and it took us a while to get that flow and from a coach's point of view there were far too many turnovers."

Ferns' skipper Anna Rowberry thought the team could have started better after conceding early goals in the first quarter.

"We'll want to sharpen up that flow on attack as it was a little hesitant through the mid-court.

"We just needed to let the ball go and when we did we had success."

Rowberry's counterpart, Liz Ellis, felt her team's inexperience cost them the match.

"A lot of people thought at home we wouldn't go so well. We proved that cool heads didn't prevail tonight, but the only way you get experience is to keep putting people on the court."

As they did in the world championship final, Australia had more attempts at goal but could not match the Silver Ferns' accuracy.

Last night the Silver Ferns landed 54 of their 61 attempts and Australia just 45 from 63.

Australian coach Norma Plummer was reasonably happy with her side's first hitout against the world champions.

"We are an unknown quantity ... they only really got away in the last quarter," she said.

"I basically feel that if we had of nailed a couple of those shots and got some of the loose balls then that might have changed the flow."

As expected, Aitken started with the same lineup that beat Australia in the final of the world championships.

Plummer, however, threw a spanner in the works early on starting Sharelle McMahon at goal shoot as opposed to goal attack.

With just three caps to her name, Jessica Shynn started at wing attack for the Australians, teaming up with Natasha Chokljat at centre while 1.89m tall Demelza Fellowes made her debut at goal defence.

Just how the Silver Ferns would contend with the height of Fellowes was one of the intriguing questions heading into the series.

Initially the additional height appeared to have little effect on the Silver Ferns as they raced out to an early lead.

The centre passoff caused both sides a fair bit of difficulty early on. Australian centre Chokljat gifted two passes to the New Zealanders while the Silver Ferns Temepara Clarke was penalised twice for incorrect passoffs late in the quarter which helped the Australians to a 16-14 lead at the first break.

The New Zealand defence came to the forefront early in the second quarter, creating a number of turnovers.

Vilimaina Davu and Sheryl Scanlan managed to rattle the usually composed McMahon, who would probably rather forget last night's performance.

Just before the halftime break, Australia switched their defence moving Ellis out to goal defence and Fellowes back to goal keep.

The Silver Ferns led 29-27 at halftime when both coaches rung in the changes.

Rowberry was relegated to the bench in favour of Adine Harper while Lesley Nicol was replaced by Victoria Edward.

For Australia, McMahon switched to goal attack with Cynna Neele moving back to goal shoot.

The Silver Ferns held a 41-38 lead going into the last quarter and in a last ditch attempt Plummer made further changes.

Susan Meaney replaced Chokljat at centre and McMahon was sent to the bench.

Neele moved back out to goal attack and Kristen Heinrich, who joined the team at the 11th hour following the injury to Cath Cox, came on as goal shoot.

Scanlan came through with some beautiful intercepts late in the game which helped the Ferns to a insurmountable lead.

The second test is tomorrow night in Palmerston North.