KEY POINTS:
Goal shoot Irene van Dyk's indifferent performance is a symptom rather than the cause of New Zealand's second netball loss in England in 48 hours, former international Noeline Taurua said today.
The Silver Ferns lost 47-50 to Australia in Birmingham today, two days after losing 45-50 to England
for the first time in 32 years.
Despite a vastly improved performance from the New Zealanders -- the scores were tied at 41-41 midway through the final quarter -- Australia pulled away to secure the win.
Taurua told NZPA it was too simplistic to isolate van Dyk's performance from that of the rest of the team.
"Being a goal shoot, you're the last line of attack and that's where everything's concentrated on," she said.
"With Irene, as with others, there are individual errors happening at critical times. But it's not just one person," said Taurua, who coaches van Dyk's Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic team in the domestic National Bank Cup.
"Everyone's highlighting Irene, but she's only one person at that attacking end.
"Their links just aren't working very well, their timing is out and they've got some areas of concern at that end."
Taurua said today's test highlighted the midcourt shortcomings that have dogged the Silver Ferns on and off over the years.
"Looking at it today, they're wanting a bit in that area. As has happened in the past, especially against Australia, they're getting themselves quite wide so there's no one attacking or dominating the top of the circle," she said.
New Zealand needed to look closely at the midcourt, to consider what options were available to them in captain Adine Wilson's wing attack position.
"I do think there needs to be another option in the wing attack role," Taurua said.
She said the combination between van Dyk and goal attack Maria Tutaia was developing well.
"The good thing about Maria in that circle is that she's relieving the pressure.
"New Zealand have two shooters who are pretty much putting up the same amount of shots. That's excellent -- the defence can't just concentrate on one person, which is what England did."
Tutaia sank 21 shots from 28 attempts today while van Dyk was accurate with 26 from 34, a lower success rate than usual mainly due to the higher number of long shots she attempted.
Taurua said it was "interesting" that van Dyk put up more shots from distance than usual.
"There are positives in that she had a go at it but there's also negatives, in that's not what her strength is. Her strength is tight play, holding underneath the post and making sure she holds strongly."
The Silver Ferns showed character in battling back from an unimpressive start, but after trailing 12-17 at the end of the first quarter they were always playing catch-up.
Coach Ruth Aitken pulled ineffective goal defence Anna Scarlett off after one quarter, and replacement Joline Henry's combination with goal keep Casey Williams played a big part of New Zealand cutting the deficit to 22-24 at halftime.
Taurua said it was pleasing to see the way Williams and Henry, key components in her Magic team, worked together.
"They worked for each other, which was different from the first quarter. Joline coming in there and bringing the ball through on attack also helped, and there was probably more accuracy on their passes.
"It's a bit worrying the first combination in defence let Australia out by five points.
"I guess the positive is that New Zealand did came back, but it just meant it was always going to be catch-up netball and in an international match, that's difficult."
Temepara George came on for starting centre Julie Seymour for the final 30 minutes, but the Silver Ferns' inconsistencies in feeding the circle continued, as did errors at crucial times.
It was those individual errors that needed to be eliminated if New Zealand wanted to defend their world championship title in Auckland in November, Taurua said.
"They've got to improve on those sloppy individual errors that are happening right throughout the court.
"Three points is not that much, it still could go either way and they're definitely still in there."
- NZPA
