Hertfordshire Mavericks picked up their opening win of The FIAT Netball Superleague season on Friday evening with victory over Yorkshire Jets at a boisterous Bonus Arena in Hull. Mavericks Head Coach Karen Atkinson pointed to her side’s strong start as a key factor in winning the match. She said “I was really pleased with our start, I thought we came out all guns blazing which was our intention. We wanted to take the game to Jets, we wanted to silence the crowd a little bit and they were very silent in the first quarter. I think that ourselves and Jets are both in with a shout of getting into that top four and we both have young teams, it’s a matter of winning these crucial games that are a little more 50/50.”
The ex-England captain gave credit to the hosts as a stirring fight back certainly asked questions of her team. “They (the crowd) got a little bit noisier as they came back into the game a little bit more. Fair play to Jets I thought they fought right to the end, I thought they started to adapt to what we were putting out there and we need to adapt a little bit more to different styles of play, in the shooting circle in particular. I was impressed with our defence; it was a big step up from last week which is what we have been working on. They went from a fairly stationary shooter to two mobile shooters and then back to the stationary shooter and they need to recognise the difference of defensive style which they need to employ against that.”
In the mid-court for Mavericks, Rose Morgan-Smith was incredibly impressive with her tireless work rate and swift movement. Her performance was a big positive for Atkinson, who agreed “Rose was excellent today she still working on her game, working on lots of elements in particular her attacking but I thought her feeding was spectacular and I thought she read the game very well in defence and she has got such speed she can cut out the interceptions.” The match was ferocious on occasions, with the umpires playing a pivotal role in the match with a lot of contested ball being witnessed. Speaking of the physical encounter, Atkinson said “I think both sides were really putting the ball carriers under pressure so they were really challenging every single ball which I think made it hard for the umpires because everything was contested. I thought it was just a really hard fought game.”
A notable tactic from the Mavericks coach was that the same seven players remained on court throughout the game, although this was not what Atkinson had in mind before the match, she confirmed “I didn’t go into the game with that tactic, I just went in to see how they were going to perform. They were performing well up until half-time and probably up until three quarter time, they were still in control of the game. In hindsight, I think our shooters got a little bit fatigued, the movement and the strength on the ball and the holding of space started to ebb a little bit in the last quarter, and they are aware of that. They just need to dig in through that really tough patch which I was pleased with. They need to do that (see games out) if they are going through a tough patch themselves as a unit or as a team they need to pull themselves out of that so it was really good to see them do that and actually finish with the last few goals even if the Jets did deserve to win that last quarter”
Yorkshire Jets assistant coach Lisa Ferneyhough admitted it was a frustrating game to lose and that the hosts were not helped by a lack of umpiring consistency, she said “A lot of the time it was 50/50 ball and I think, sometimes it went the Mavericks way, sometimes it went our way with the decisions from the umpires. However, we go from game to game and umpires are obviously different from game to game. Some umpires let things go and some umpires pull things up and I think that’s where the game is quite difficult to judge and it’s quite difficult to train players on how they should contest when it’s so different from one game to the next, so that’s a challenge in itself. I would say that consistency is a good thing throughout the board to play in netball. Obviously we are trying to make netball a spectator sport so umpires are giving advantage and letting things go. We want to be able to make it a spectator sport and we want girls to be able to have the freedom to go for interceptions and to go for the 50/50 balls. I think that, from game to game, it changes so it’s difficult for us to be able to coach like that,”
A slow start cost the Jets dear as they instantly fell behind to the reigning FNSL champs and Ferneyhough admitted her side were caught cold early on, “We were expecting to go out and put up a much closer fight with Mavericks. However, we lost the game in the first quarter of the match. I don’t think we anticipated the speed that the Mavericks came at us, we were on the back foot really, throughout the whole game. Not to the detriment of the girls, they put in a huge amount of work over the pre-season and the course of the year but we just need to understand where we make mistakes and we need to keep learning, I feel like sometimes we should have learnt but we are still in the learning stages.
"When we play fast and give the ball, we win. When we think too much and over analyse, we tend to give the wrong pass and don’t give something that is right in front of our faces. The mood is a little bit disappointed after the first two games but it’s nothing. We’re still working hard and working on our areas. This time last year we were losing by much more, we were letting other players get a lot more goals on us. Keeping them to 48 was great for our defence; we just need to score more goals really.”
Ferneyhough saved the last word for what a fantastic home support in Hull, she said “We love the new arena, it’s fantastic. The atmosphere is so much more exhilarating, the girls love it, they love the support and the pink and purple was fully on show today. I am looking forward to other teams coming to visit us!”
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