Loughborough Lightning v Team Northumbria (Dec 06)

Northumbria is a very, very long way away on a Friday night!! Awful traffic on the journey turned the trip to Gateshead in to a nightmare with Lightning only arriving 25 minutes before warm-up started (and that was after the game had been delayed by 30 minutes). Consequently the squad were not in the mental and physical shape you would want to be in before a NSL game. However, Lightning could, and should, have played a far stronger game then they did against a competitive Northumbria team.

Northumbria have been bolstered this season by the arrival of three young Kiwis, in the UK on University scholarship packages, and, despite losing to Hurricanes the previous week, were always going to be a handful on their home turf. The game started with Kate Murphy making her first appearance for Lightning at WD with Clarke back at C and Percy, in her native North East, starting at WA. Reid (GK) and Tomlin (GD) were the Lightning defensive pairing, with Stephenson (GA) and James (GS) completing the line up. Sadly for Lightning the team simply didn’t spark in the first 15 minutes. Northumbria were mentally up for the game and contested everything upsetting Lightning all the way down the court. With ball in hand we looked tentative and uncertain and didn’t penetrate the attacking third with any pace or power. The shooting was also off the mark reaching only 65% accuracy. A marked contrast to the Hurricanes performance of only 6 days ago. (Q1 8-10)

Rosie Port brought on O’Neill for Murphy at the start of the second quarter but, whilst we started to look stronger with ball in hand through the mid-court, Lightning were still stalling trying to move in to the attacking third. All the way down the court Lightning were making uncharacteristic errors and allowing Northumbria to keep their slender two goal lead (18-20). The fluency of the past two games had abandoned Lightning and with the Kiwi trio of Tod, van Beek and Hikawai playing strong games we were struggling to find form.

In the third quarter Astle entered the fray with James switching to GA. This move certainly improved Lightning’s attacking play and we gradually closed the gap on Northumbria. However late in the quarter errors started to creep back in to Lightning’s game and prevented us getting our noses in front. All the way down the court Northumbria kept hassling and pressurising as they sensed that they could get their first win over a top four ranked team (31-31).

In the final quarter Lightning tried to lift their game but were still stuttering and tentative moving forwards. Northumbria edged ahead but then their nerve began to wobble slightly and with 15 seconds to go Lightning levelled the score. With the ball in Lightning’s possession there was a clear chance to win the game at the death. Sadly the lack of composure that had dogged Lightning all night returned and the ball was thrown away in the dying seconds. Northumbria were delighted to have shared the spoils whilst Lightning were very deflated after having performed so well against Hurricanes.

Clarke and O’Neill had worked tirelessly in the mid-court all night but the team as a whole didn’t gel. Ultimately whilst Northumbria played well Lightning know that we had the possession to win the game but lost it through our own errors. Fortunately the Christmas break gives time to re-group, re-think and hit the ground running in 2007. Lying third in the table Lightning are still on target to be in then play-offs.