Netball: Ferns welcome African hitouts as chance to sharpen up

The Silver Ferns. Photo / Getty Images

The Silver Ferns will sharpen up for this weekend's opening test against Australia with a couple of rare hit-outs against African nations.

South Africa and Malawi will play the curtain-raiser to Sunday's opening Constellation Cup match as part of a sporting festival in Perth to coincide with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

While they are over in this part of the world they will also get exposure to top-level competition, with warm-up games against New Zealand, Australia and the Australian Under-21 side.

Silver Ferns shooter Cathrine Latu said the two sides would provide an ideal lead-in to the Australian series.

The Ferns will take on the world No 6-ranked Malawi side today, before meeting South Africa, who gave New Zealand an early shake-up in their world championship quarter-final match-up, tomorrow.

"I think it's amazing for their part of the world to get that kind of exposure and I'm pretty sure they're going to throw everything at us, so we couldn't ask for a better build-up really," Latu said.

Although the main aim of the fixtures is to help continue the development of the African nations, the games, which do not carry test-match status, will also be hugely beneficial for new Ferns coach Waimarama Taumaunu.

Taumaunu, who is in her first tour in charge of the New Zealand side, said after her earlier-than-expected elevation to the top job the hit-outs would allow her to refamiliarise herself with the Ferns structures.

"From my perspective those practice games will really be crucial to get me back into the swing of things."

Taumaunu, who has long been touted as Ruth Aitken's likely successor, took over the top job earlier than originally planned after Aitken was forced to withdraw from the Australian tour due to personal reasons.

That has left Taumaunu with just a week to get up to speed with the Ferns programme and Silver Ferns captain Laura Langman said the warm-up games would allow them to make good use of that time.

"These practice games are a good opportunity to just try out different structures and different on- and off-court strategies," Langman said.

"I think Wai realises this is a short timeframe so she is keen to learn what we have been doing so she can just tinker and sharpen up a few things that we've been doing."