2022 COMMONWEALTH GAMES FINALS – Day 10 (Aug 7)

I think it’s a tough call to leave some one like Jo Harten out of your team. I agree her injury (or whatever it was) didn’t make things any easier for the team. But there would have been an uproar if England tried to bring in some youth/newbies, instead of these experienced players – EUB SFB and Harten.
I think Thirlby wouldn’t have won either way. Finish fourth with an experienced team, people say “this would have been an opportunity to blood someone fresh”. Finish fourth leaving out some experience players, people would say “we needed experience, had too many rookies” ?‍♂️

I agree with the above about JT. Was interesting to see she had no hesitation putting SDL on in the quad series but not comm games.

I seem to recall seeing Malcolm was recruited as a WA for the Tactix, @mcleod. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Poi spend some time there.

I wonder if Taurua’s selections and Ferns position play will filter down to the ANZP teams:

– Gordon and Souness – think the expectation was Maddy would start at C and Whitney at WA but I think these two can definitely switch. Souness may want to continue developing her C game and Gordon’s was electric at WA for the Pulse in 2020.
– Wilson – might see more of her switching with Hume, even for a change-up for the Stars.
– Heffernan – keep her at C with Winders at WD. Still fresh in learning the ropes at C and think staying there for the Steel will only enhance her game at WD for the Ferns.
– Poi – would like to see her at WA. Think she is getting a bit stale at C for Tactix. I actually think Poi needs a change of team.
– Mes – I reckon we’ll see her exclusively play at GS with Ekenasio in front of her. Eke was played at GS when Taurua first became Ferns coach and I seem to recall the commentary being Eke got stuck behind her GK. Will allow Bailey to really build on her Magic season this year with a full season being serviced by a fit Eke.
– Dunn and TPSR – Dunn has said she’s keen to learn GA and I think job sharing the positions will keep things fresh for this Tactix duo.

Note a few Ferns players are travelling in Europe – Crampton, TPSR, Hef and Nweke. Wonder if we’ll see a lot of the CWG team unavailable as Taurua trials options in the TJ Series before consolidating for Constellation Cup and 2023 Jan Quad Series.

Elley has been replaced by Greer Sinclair @TheBroadbean who I think is a great pick-up.

Imagine she would get the Tactix start at WD, although could have Poi at C and Petera WA if Malcolm is pushed to WD.

Clearly bored without the CWG netball haha.

Couldn’t agree more @thebroadbean – we flogged Nat and Geva to the point of exhaustion. I felt so sorry for them both, particularly Nat who was holding back the tears in her final interview – she gave it all. Now we HAVE to look to the future: Alice Harvey and Funmi Fadoju must be the first names on the team sheet for the next test series, they need to be blooded and quickly. And as for not having a back up WA, why wasn’t SDL used more? She was brilliant when she was on the court. And if she wasn’t the answer, then at least pick a proper WA backup – Hannah Joseph was so effective for Loughborough, so why not use her. I know we can’t see all the decision making processes that the coaching line up goes through, but really, this last ten days has made me feel like we’re going back to the bad old days of Stembridge and Caldow :scratch:

Fair play to Australia, they played superb netball when it counted, and Jamaica were awesome. But I think England also let the media hype of being on home turf get to them: am hopeful that being offshore might take the pressure off a bit.

I haven’t seen any, but the B2022 games app has stats reports for individual players , teams and aggregates. Not as detailed as Champion, and not necessarily the same definitions for stats, but still very interesting.

It will be interesting what players are trialled in the upcoming series. England is in a good position playing Uganda first, they should be able to give all of those players challenging for Roses selection significant game time (Fisher, Fadoju, Harvey, Joseph, maybe even Tchine?). New Zealand have players coming back next year but surely they will want to test a few new players after several didn’t perform at CWG (or at least not until the medal game). I think Australia should rest the players with injury concerns (Hadley, Wood) and even some of the more established players where we know what they can do (Weston, Brazill). That would give opportunities to players like Dwyer, Proud, Bakewell-Doran and Parmenter. Jamaica probably doesn’t need to blood any players, more expose their existing players to more top-level competition. Exciting times ahead!

That 10 goal lead in the third quarter of the final certainly had the Sunshine Girls’ heads spinning and although they gradually whittled it down this put them off their preferred game and they had to chase. In the last quarter the Diamonds began to doubt themselves near the end, but fortunately instead of continuing with throwing ball around at the circle edge put the last shots up to seal the match. Have not seen the match stats yet, but watched the game again for the turnovers and tips which the Diamonds got plenty of in the third quarter.