Netball - Ups and Downs

Its been a while since we gave an update about netball, so for those of you that are interested here is a quick recap of the results from the last few weeks.

We missed 2 rounds while we were in Australia, but is was business as usual. The Men's team had 2 solid wins over weaker opponents and the Women's A side played the 2 top teams (SCOPA and St. Mary's) and were soundly beaten in both. I think Angela was secretly pleased to have missed those 2 hidings!

The first week we were back the Men's team had another comfortable win and Angela's team also had a win. This was a very rare occasion - all 3 teams in the club managed to win their games.

The following week was a big one for the Men's team -we were challenging Marist for the shield. This shield is a bit like the Ranfurly Shield and it was our chance to take on the current holders. We were keen to win and everyone was fired up before the game. It was a tough game and there was a big crowd cheering on each side so it was getting very noisy. We played well, probably well enough to win by 10 or more goals, but in the end we had to score a goal in the last moments to secure a 1 point win! Our attackers seemed to struggle to get the goals in, but us at the defence end kept us in the game. Still, must give some credit to our GA, Lavi, who very coolly slotted the goal to break the deadlock with just a few seconds to go. Very exciting for the crowd to watch, but extremely nerve wracking for us players!

Angela' s team won again that week, which I think is the first time they have won two games in a row (but she doesn't like me to mention that!). Of course the club had to celebrate and the shield found a new home at Ray and Mary's house. That weekend was also a long weekend, so as well as the Saturday night party there was also a BBQ on Monday afternoon, with the shield as guest of honor. I think the party lasted well into the night for some.

After winning the shield that meant that the next week we had to defend it against GM Bakery. They are one of the better sides in our competition and have a well earned reputation for being a rough team. We were quite disappointed to find out that our game, which we considered to be one of the key games that week, had been scheduled on court 2. Court 2 doesn't have a scoreboard or clock, so you can't tell who is winning or how much longer there is to play, and one of the goal rings is broken! For whatever reason (some people still hungover from all the celebrating?!) we started off slowly and were behind by 8 after the first quarter. We improved as the game went on and got to within a couple of goals at one stage, but we couldn't quite catch up. Again the goals just weren't going in, so after only 1 week we had to hand the shield over. Angela's team also lost, so there wasn't much celebrating that week.

Yesterday Angela's team played St Mary's again, and this time instead of a 60 goal thrashing their team played really well and stayed in the game. After being quite even over the first 2 quarters St. Mary's finally got in front and ended up winning the game by 10 goals. But it was a much better performance and it is the closest that they have ever been to one of the top 2 sides.

For the Men's team it was our last round-robin game before playoffs start next week. We had no shield to play for and had already made the top 4 so the result wasn't critical, but we were playing SCOPA. They are the only unbeaten team this season and were the only team that beat us last year so we were quite keen to knock them off and maybe claim top spot going into the playoffs. Again we had been put on court 2 and weren't happy about it. Not only had they still not repaired the broken ring, but the ring at the other end of the court is now bent too and the net is only just hanging on. The first quarter ended in confusion when the timekeeper brought the quarter to an end after 10 minutes (instead of 15). When several of the players asked what was happening the umpires realised that there had been a mistake so we had to go back on court and play the remaining 5 minutes! It was a pretty close game all the way, we were down by 2 after the first quarter, up by 2 at halftime and up by 5 after 3 quarters. But the last quarter didn't go our way. First, there was another mistake with the time keeping, apparently they hadn't stated the clock, or something. By the time they had realised we had already scored 2 goals to SCOPA's none and had possession, but the umpires for some strange reason decide to give 1 point to each team then restart the quarter with SCOPA in possession. No one can understand how they thought that was fair. Then we only played 10 minutes after the restart, no one can explain how they figured that one out either. Anyway, between all the confusion we let SCOPA catch up with us, again the goals just weren't going in, and at the final whistle apparently they won by 1 goal. I am still not convinced that timekeepers and scorekeepers got it right, but I guess they won't change the result now. So, we didn't manage to get our first win over SCOPA, but maybe we will get a chance for revenge in the playoffs.