Loughborough Lightning v Hurricanes

Lightning played a superb game of netball on Saturday evening to beat a strong Hurricanes side. Hurricanes came in to the game riding high in NSL. Having beaten Mavericks and watched Lightning losing badly to Bath, Hurricanes may have been guilty of underestimating the strength of the home team.

The key to Lightning’s victory was the aggressive all court defence they played from start to finish of the game. Reid and Tomlin were outstanding in the Lightning defensive circle and they put Hurricanes shooters under immense pressure. The pressure eventually told, denied a chance to develop any rhythm Hurricanes shooting accuracy dropped to only 48% in the second half.

Outside the defensive circle the Lightning mid court of Clarke (WD), O’Neill (C) and Percy (WA) never allowed their opposite numbers to settle. They played a high octane, physical game competing for every scrap of possession. Whether defending or driving forward Lightning played with an intensity that Hurricanes could only match in patches. The relentless power and drive in the Lightning attacking game also kept the Hurricanes all England defence of Mkoloma and Hutchinson very busy. With Astle holding well in the circle and Becky James moving fluently around her Lightning kept finding great shooting positions despite aggressive Hurricanes defending. Lightning’s finishing was on song as well with Astle shooting at over 80% success rate with James (78%) not far behind.

Taken as whole this was a superb team performance. Hurricanes are a very strong team who will undoubtedly feature in the play-offs and they wont have travelled up from London expecting to go back down the motorway having lost by 13. Whilst the win was important it was the manner of Lightning’s performance that was even more impressive. No one really noticed that Liv Murphy, normally so influential in attack and defense, didn’t take the court all night. With Ama Agbeze still to come back in to the team the future seems bright with one more game to go before the Christmas break.