KEY POINTS:
Bright lights, big stage.
New Zealand netball strode into new territory last night. The biggest crowd to watch an indoor sports event in the country poured into the shiny new Vector Arena.
Warmup act The Ladykillers belted out Good Vibrations. Anticipation, if not love, was thick in the
air.
The tough mob from over the way were in town and even MC Frankie "The Voice" Stevens was drowned out by the din as he called the Silver Ferns on court. Even Stevens is no match for 18,000 thundersticks.
Those playing spot the faces would have spied All Black coach Graham Henry in the near capacity 9000 arena. He'd know who is occupying Silver Ferns coach Ruth Aitken's mind these days, and they wear green and gold. Ditto for Henry. Vector Arena last night; Eden Park Saturday night.
Aitken has two games left before embarking on New Zealand's world championship defence in Auckland in November. The good news it's against the best possible opposition.
The thing about the best team sports contests is there are battles within the war.
It's possible to win the latter without dominating all the individual parts, but it sure helps. Last night, Australia held all the aces when it mattered.
There are few transtasman rivalries more gripping in recent times than that between Silver Ferns shooting act Irene van Dyk and Australia's skipper and goalkeep Liz Ellis.
They've been duelling for the fat end of a dozen years and you'd pick there's plenty of mutual respect.
One wins games - okay, teammates help, but that's the bottom line - and there's few to compare with her gifts under the hoop; the other stops shooters playing, and there's none better.
So they squared off again last night, each knowing they'd meet again in Australia twice more in the coming days, and again - most probably on the same block of floor - in four months with all the marbles on the line.
By the end of the first quarter, Ellis had got up to block one van Dyk shot, had seen the Silver Fern miss another, and helped establish a decisive 17-10 lead and a grip Australia never relinquished.
Ellis nipped in with a couple of superb intercepts in the second quarter and put herself about with a touch of steel.
But champions don't get that way by luck and van Dyk strove to assert herself in a fascinating battle of wills.
Coaches taking their teams into raucous opposition territory tell their players to "silence the crowd". That's not easy in Thunderstick city. But it happened briefly late in the first quarter as the margin grew.
The clatter of bodies is an essential part of these clashes. Players strove mightily for every scrap of possession.
But this was a night when the loose balls fell Australia's way, when they had a sharper edge in the important areas.
The venue was a winner, although the food lines were long. More importantly, it's now five losses in the past six games against Australia.
Hard work lies ahead.
