Harten was insanely good on Saturday – a class above everyone, including even Erin Bell, who didn’t do much tbh.
Still don’t see the point of this format though, not least because playing at this time of year means the audience misses out on seeing the England players, who are either on down time from Suncorp / ANZ or away on tour with England. To see Ellie Cardwell and Laura Malcolm there but not playing was so so frustrating for viewers!
Lightning played so well, but it’s clear that this is now all about the five point shot- so many times people were in scoring positions and passed back out to go for the longer shots…which they missed. I felt really sorry for the centres, who were running miles – Leota and Caroline O’Hanlon, who are both superfit, were blowing really hard by the end of each 12 minutes.
It’s certainly fast, but do we need the game to get any faster? Top level netball is already end to end stuff, and certainly towards the end of the afternoon, there were quite a lot of bored youngsters who couldn’t keep up with the plot.
I’d so much rather that the money was invested in a proper Superleague tournament – maybe featuring each club’s U21 and U19 teams as well as the open squads, in shorter matches, to really get the crowds involved and start some partisan cheering. Was great to see lots of clubs embracing the idea of selling proper kit to fans (which is working) and also the mascots – although where was Thunder Bear?!!!
