Australia and New Zealand continue to impress at Netball World Cup

Australia and New Zealand made it three out of three wins at the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in Sunday's morning session of matches. 

The Australian Diamonds began day three with a dominant 101-32 win over minnows Fiji who failed to score more than 10 goals in all four quarters of their match. 

With the first preliminary stage now completed for the Australians, there is an anxious wait to see who they will play in the next round. Coach Stacey Marinkovich said they will be ready for any opposition. 

“It is going to be tough for us. We have eyes on the other teams but as we have gone on this journey the focus has always been on how we get our game, performance and style against any opposition,” she said. 

“We will talk about what we the opposition bring to the table, but then it is just about how we continue to recognise moments. There are still some key lessons because in certain quarters we were challenged a bit.

“The draw is what it is and we have our eyes on whoever we are going to play against. The new challenges of the World Cup are that you have to be able to bring your A-game on the day.

“You have to learn and adapt in the moment and that is something we are working on and are mindful of.” 

In the other early match, Wales registered their first win of the tournament with a 68-56 win over whipping girls Sri Lanka. 

In later matches of the morning session, Malawi proved too strong for Barbados as they triumphed 84-48 while the New Zealand Silver Ferns showed no mercy as they thumped Singapore 80-19. 

Despite winning by a convincing margin, New Zealand coach Noeline Taurua was not entirely happy with their performance. 

“I thought attention to detail in some respects was not on point as we would have expected of ourselves. No disrespecting Singapore but I think we didn’t have the urgency when we had ball in hand,” she said. 

“I feel today we went backwards, especially when we had ball in hand and the quality wasn’t as good as expected. We have gone a bit backwards to be honest and those are things to be addressed.” 

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