Lightning v Mavericks, April 07

Lightning entered this game with high hopes of winning and securing second position in NSL however it wasnt to be.

Mavericks fielded a full strength team with five current or ex-England players on the court including current captain Amanda Newton. Lightning had their England stars Jade Clarke and Ama Agbeze fully fit so it was going to be a battle royal for the Sky TV cameras.

The game started with both sides defending strongly and making life exceptionally difficult for the attacking players. Numerous errors and turnovers characterised the play with neither side able to dominate the game even for short periods. The quarter ended 9-8 in Mavericks favour but Lightning had created more opportunities (15 shots) without capitalising.

The second quarter saw Percy move to the bench for Lightning as ONeill came on to the court at C and Clarke moved to WD. This move galvanised Lightning and some fluency returned to their play. Whilst everything was closely contested Lightning managed to open up a small lead winning the quarter by 4 and ending the half 3 goals to the good.

At half time Mavericks coach Maggie Jackson made what turned out to be a critical change switching Brownfield and Harten around as GA and GS. For Lightning this was a quarter they will want to forget in a hurry. After playing effectively in the second quarter the wheels simply fell off our attacking machine. Lightning were restricted to a total of only 7 shots in the whole quarter and scored from less than half of them. The quarter went to Mavericks 14-3 and the game was effectively gone (24-33).

The final quarter saw James replace Stephenson at GA and Lightning started to attack again more efficiently. Our mid-court never tired and kept fighting but pulling back a 9 goal deficit was an impossible task. We scrapped our way to winning the quarter 9-7 and a final scoreline of 40-33 but never threatened to win the game.

What positives can Lighting take from the game? Well we won two quarters and lost the first by only one goal. Defensively we can look at the game and recognise that we kept a top side to a score of only 40 when we werent scoring ourselves. That is no mean feat however we have to recognise that our attacking game fell apart for a whole quarter. This has happened before this season and we have to find a remedy for that quickly. We know that at our best we can compete with, and beat, any team in the country but, in order to do that you have to put together four quarters of netball not three. Lots still to do but we are in the play-offs and anything can happen.