Reply To: Leading Silver Ferns trio could bolster squad for January quad series

[tasman]

#1352834

In terms of the world cup squad, i think the attack and defence ends have been pretty much confirmed, bar injury, pregnancy or extraordinary change in form over the upcoming anz. For the midcourt, Crampton, Heffernan are a lock, and Souness is almost the same, but I’d say not quite a lock as I think she is still new to C and she didn’t quite show consistency over cwg and constellation cup. But she still showed moments of brilliance and with her ability to cover WA, she should get in the team.

The question is whether you take Toeava for extra WA cover, or Johnson for extra WD/GD cover. I think the ferns struggle more in attack than in defence and Crampton can go a bit missing, particularly with the hard 1-on-1 style of the Aussies. Toeava edges ahead in getting the 4th spot, for me. But i was really impressed by Johnson’s ability to spoil the opposition’s attacking flow, and her ability to quickly transition to attack, and get the ball up the court before the opposition defence could set up, was valuable. She is too similar to Burger though, so i think she is less likely to make it over Toeava. The bolter would be Gordon, and even less likely, MRB.

So for this quad series, i would pick:
Nweke, Ekenasio, Wilson, TPSR
Crampton, Toeava, Souness, Heffernan
Jury, Karaka, Johnson. Then Burger or Watson but not both

I would then start:
GS Nweke
GA Ekenasio
WA Toeava
C Souness
WD Johnson
GD Burger (or Karaka if Burger absent)
GK Jury (or Watson if selected)

I wanna see how Johnson plays with Burger out in GD.