Netball: Toss-up for test victory

The World 7's Catherine Latu against the Silver Ferns. Photo / Getty Images

Catherine Latu can't pick the winner of the first test today between the Silver Ferns and Australian Diamonds - and that's coming from someone from a team which has beaten them both.

Latu was in the World 7 team which won the series against the Ferns and the one-off test match against the injury-hit Australians.

The World 7 were a welcome surprise in netball's rather closed international ranks - a scratch side which beat the top two teams in the world.

Latu was an impressive spearhead at the shooting end of the court for the World team but can't pick it when asked to nominate a winner of today's first transtasman clash: "It's a tough one. The Aussies had a lot of injuries and the Ferns had a lot of new combinations they were working on - so I don't really know. All I can tell you is that it will be hard-fought.

"Both teams play a different style. The game plan we played against the Silver Ferns was completely different from that we played against the Aussies.

"The Ferns don't like it when you mark them tightly, shutting them down and following all round the court. The Aussies don't like it when you stand off them and then intercept the ball as they are going for it," said Latu.

She said the fact they had a New Zealand coach when playing the Australians and an Australian coach when playing the Ferns worked perfectly.

"I don't think anyone expected us to win any of the games, really," she said. "Especially us. We expected success least of all. But it was a lot of fun."

"We all came together really fast and enjoyed it and I can honestly say that, apart from the Commonwealth Games, that was the coolest thing I have done in sport so far."

Latu said the World team were nervous about being beaten as their training sessions had been terrible.

"It didn't work out very well at all," she said of their preparation. "We didn't know much about each other and we didn't know our strengths and weaknesses and things just didn't gel.

"But it all turned out incredibly well on the night - passes flowed, we connected and adjusted and started playing to our strengths ... it was great.

"In fact, a few of us were joking about it and we said we'd have to take this 'no training' thing back to the franchises."

Latu did her own Silver Ferns chances no harm with some collected and assured shooting, top scoring against the Australians with 32 points - and that in a side that was reckoned by most pundits to be a weaker World combination than that which had beaten the Ferns.

A former Samoa representative, Latu will not be eligible for the Ferns until after the next world championships but her cool shooting - she shot at 86 per cent even in the one match lost against the Ferns - will surely have won her interest in high places.

It is not known whether the World 7 will be formed again for more matches against the Ferns and Diamonds - but in Latu they have one certain starter who would love to do it all again.

New Zealand squad: Casey Williams (captain), Liana Barrett-Chase, Maree Bowden, Temepara George, Katrina Grant, Paula Griffin, Joline Henry, Laura Langman, Larissa Willcox, Anna Thompson, Maria Tutaia, Irene van Dyk.

Australia squad: Sharelle McMahon (captain), Kate Beveridge, Julie Corletto, Catherine Cox, Johannah Curran, Susan Fuhrmann, Kimberlee Green, Renae Hallinan, Lauren Nourse, Susan Pratley, Amy Steel, Natalie von Bertouch.

Game: 2.25pm, Brisbane.