Last week we pondered whether the league was as close as had been talked up in the pre-season after watching three one-sided matches.
But in round three, Super Netball – mostly – got back to its entertaining best, with two extra-time thrillers.
In a weird coincidence, both of these contests were won by the visiting team and by a margin of four goals, as the Adelaide Thunderbirds beat the Sunshine Coast Lightning, 60-56, and the NSW Swifts claimed their State of Origin-style clash against the Queensland Firebirds, 77-73.
Meanwhile, despite losing a third straight match, the Melbourne Mavericks will be proud they were the first team to really challenge the ladder-leading West Coast Fever.
The new side only went down by seven goals, 69-62, after the Fever demolished more established teams like the Giants (19 goals) and Lightning in earlier rounds (25 goals).
The one lowlight of the weekend came in the final game between the Giants and Melbourne Vixens.
The Vixens are the only team alongside Fever to still remain undefeated as they handed the western Sydney-based side their second 19-goal loss in the space of three weeks, 63-44.
If you missed it, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered with our Super Netball Round-Up.
Jok shocks in goal keeper
It was likely Jamaican Shimona Jok was going to get a call-up and make her Mavs debut leading into round three, after the new team struggled to find a solid target in their first couple of games.
But nobody quite anticipated we’d see their 11th player donning a goal keeper bib.
Speaking with ABC Sport a couple of weeks ago, Jok did say to expect the unexpected and that she’d become a whole new player since getting married and changing her last name in the off-season, but we more so anticipated that she was alluding to a cameo in goal attack.
If you knew little about netball and just saw Jok (195cm) and fellow Sunshine Girls shooter Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard’s height on paper (198cm), you might have thought this was an obvious match-up between the Mavericks and Fever.
But Jok has rarely ventured far from that GS position during her time at the top, making this a very left-field decision by coach Tracey Neville.
It was already a big deal that Jok had been named as the side’s starting goal shooter and when the switch-up in the second super shot period of the game came, it shocked fans and Fever alike.
Jamaica has form using their tall timbers at either end of course, as we’ve seen with Romelda Aiken-George earlier in her career, however, that was something she did coming up through the pathways and we’ve never seen them do it with Jok.
Jok spent roughly 10 minutes in GK, before switching back to shoot midway through the third quarter. Then she went back to defend Fowler-Nembhard for the final six minutes of the match.
In that time, Jok managed three deflections and helped turn the ball over a few times, so should be proud of her efforts to tackle whatever role the team needed her to play.
If she can get two hands to the ball, Jok could become a really handy option in defence, which is not a sentence we’d ever imagined we’d be writing at the start of the season.
Post-match, Neville teased reporters, unwilling to give away how long she’d had that trick up her sleeve. In hindsight, maybe we shouldn’t have been so surprised, as the Mavericks brand is all about being bold and Neville was sat right beside a game changing player for the press conference in Eleanor Cardwell that had also switched ends under her guidance years ago.
“That’s being a Maverick, isn’t it? It was a little bit of a secret,” Neville said.
“I think you earn the right to be in an environment and Shimona has she’s been working really hard, we did put a lot of pressure on her today by throwing her down in that keeper end, but it was a show of her character.”
“For someone that has played goal shooter predominantly in her career and has been established in that position to be able to do that showed true spirit.
“So, for us she did a job today and her contribution to the game was excellent.”
Liz Watson critique over the top
Towards the end of the Lightning’s contest against the Thunderbirds, with the game on the line, there was a key moment that drew criticism from a Diamonds centurion.
With just two minutes to go, Australian captain Liz Watson had the ball in her hands in just her third game for the Sunshine Coast since moving north from the Melbourne Vixens.
The midcourter looked into the circle, saw no options to feed to and instead tried to give a short, flat pass to Lightning goal attack Steph Fretwell before Thunderbirds wing defence Latty Wilson used her closing speed to drive through the space and charge down the ball.
Wilson couldn’t get two hands to it, instead batting it down onto her shoe, which then sent the ball rolling towards her Thunderbirds teammate Lauren Frew waiting on the transverse line.
Reacting quickly, Frew stuck her right leg out and stopped the ball with her foot before getting low to pick it up. Before she could do anything with it though, Watson – trying to right the wrongs of her bad pass that led to the turnover – snatched possession right out of Frew’s hands.
With all the Thunderbirds bar goal keeper Shamera Sterling already starting to push forward, Watson and the Lightning attackers then pretty much had a free ride to the post to score their 49th goal and level up the score.
Without that moment, there’s doubt the game would have headed into extra-time, but whether it was game defining is another question.
As the lead commentator on the Fox Netball broadcast, former Diamonds shooter Cath Cox said: “I can’t think of anything I’ve ever seen as blatant as that go unnoticed and uncalled.”
Cox then doubled down on her criticism on the network’s show Pivot a day later, adding: “I’m all for being physical, but cheating, I’m absolutely 100 per cent against. That was [cheating] in my opinion, it was a dirty move.”
The comment feels harsh and over the top, as that moment felt more like it was about umpire error or a lack of intervention from the officials than it did about Watson’s conduct.
Sure, Watson probably shouldn’t have batted it out of Frew’s hands, but speaking after the match, the midcourter said she had thought it was Lightning’s ball fair and square, as you’re not allowed to kick the ball in netball, and both Wilson and Frew had got a foot to it.
“Just play on, yeah, I thought they kicked the ball, so I just picked it up and played it,” Watson said.
Even if the umpire had judged the foot contact by the Thunderbirds to be fine, they probably should have been awarded a penalty after Watson pinched the ball out of Frew’s hands.
Housby gets narrow win in 100th game
It’s not often players get to experience glory in their milestone matches and for much of Sunday’s contest between the Firebirds and Swifts, it looked as if Housby too would miss out on her big day.
In a real grind, the home side in Brisbane had a slight edge in the first three quarters, but something Swifts coach Briony Akle said at half-time clicked into gear in the fourth quarter and suddenly her team were the ones with momentum.
Working hard in defence, the side converted their turnovers with two-point super shots to undo all the Firebirds’ hard work.
With just under two minutes left in regular time and the Swifts behind by one, the team in purple had to think quickly.
Ultimately, they tried to copy the Swifts’ famous possession-style play, going back and forth in their goal third to try and wind down the clock. That plan came unstuck when they mucked around with it too much instead of just looking to post.
What should have happened is for them to pass it around a bit, then either give it to Donnell Wallam to slot an easy goal under the post to keep the score ticking over or to give the ball to Tippah Dwan in the super shot arc to put the game out of reach.
Instead, the Firebirds persisted with that risky style of play for longer than they should have, heading in and out of the circle unnecessarily, and going back to the transverse line one too many times, before spilling the ball over the side of the court.
As a result, the Swifts got the throw-in, converted and sent us into extra time for the second time in two days. From then on, the Firebirds already looked defeated, playing with their heads down, knowing they should never have let the game get into this position.
Housby was one of the players that really stood up in the second-half to help the Swifts lift.
Her accuracy dropped as low as 67 per cent in the second quarter, but by the end of the match she was back up at an overall 90 per cent accuracy. Her work rate on the centre pass also improved.
“That felt pretty special, it’s definitely not a match I’m going to forget,” Housby said.
“I think we made it pretty hard for ourselves but that spirit and that fight probably sums up what I believe the Swifts are about and it’s an honour to get 100 caps for this club.”
Posted 4h ago4 hours agoMon 29 Apr 2024 at 8:31am, updated 4h ago4 hours agoMon 29 Apr 2024 at 9:01am
