2022 COMMONWEALTH GAMES FINALS – Day 10 (Aug 7)

Also such a special moment to get EUB on court; good on Mentor

Glad to see NZ win that one. Though they still look to be a long way from their former glory.

I have been SHOCKED at the attitude of some of the English players. Some of them you expect it from (SFB, Clarke with some ugly niggle), but I was sad to see how far Gusgoth has fallen. She was an absolute favourite of mine when she played for the thunderbirds, but she’s been bordering on being petulant throughout this tournament.

This is also the reason I want to see Klau as starting GK over Bruce. I cannot handle the poor attitudes

Wonderful moment with EUB coming on for Mentor at the end there. She’s had a great career, lovely to see her finishing it off on court in front of her family.

NZL were great, such a deserved medal for the Ferns. The best I’ve seen Karaka play since before she had Covid. Crampton also had a great game, with Nweke completely dominant. With the return of some of their missing players and some of the other young talent coming through, they’ll be pushing for Top 2 again at NWC.

England looked tired and just didn’t have enough X Factor to deal with the Ferns. It will be interesting to see what the team looks like at NWC, I think they need new blood.

@WeWood Oh lord it was at the edge of the TV screen so was hoping it just looked worse than it did. I just assumed they didn’t stop play as there were only seconds left. Fingers crossed.

Lovely guard of honour tunnel from both teams for SFB and EUB at the end, though the TV feed got cut :mail:

Going back up to Birmingham this eve for the final, might need to have earplugs ready for the crowd if Jamaica take it!

Well I firmly take back what I said about NZ not medalling 💀. But a solid performance from them. Kept their heads and composure better than England did. Nweke outplayed Mentor from start to finish, and I feel like she’ll be all the better for this experience. In 12 months time come World Cup, she’ll be a real danger. Better performances from Crampton and Souness. Compared to many predictions, they’ve done well.

This is nothing short of a complete failure for England. They had the squad to make the final or at least medal, but are walking away empty handed. They really lacked energy and spark today. Too many coaching errors from Thirlby and co when it came down to the business end. The review for England Netball will be long and rough.

Just watched some interviews on Sky with the Ferns.

Taurua said the start was crucial, and defensively especially they muscled up so even though they didn’t win a lot of ball off the Roses, it wasn’t an undisrupted passage to goal.

When pressed about individual players obviously nodded to Nweke – “she took mammoth ball.. previously playing Geva she had been minced up.” A way with words for sure. Also said Heffernan was a star with her turnover ball.

Interestingly when pressed if many of this squad would feature at next year’s NWC, Taurua said it was a good base, but she was going home to review the “new breed of talent” (or words to that effect) and would use the Taino Jamison Series and Constellation Cup to test players.

Gina Crampton was a picture of relief. Again reiterated this game was the Ferns best start of the tournament and starting well has been a key message of Taurua’s for “the last couple years”. Was happy her side “finally played to their potential” and couldn’t agree more with that statement.

Last interviewee was an animated TPSR. I must’ve missed it, but Purvis said to TP that Crampton said she’d finally “pulled finger” which I thought was funny. Acknowledged she played very much a third feeder role but with Nweke under the hoop it did give her confidence when she went to the post. A big boost for her mate, she said Nweke wanted to make a statement that she should be the team’s starting GS after not getting the start against Jamaica. A happy TPSR who said she wasn’t quite over the Gold Coast trauma but would celebrate the “rose gold.”

Just pulled this from the Stuff live feed:

For now, here’s what Noeline Taurua had to say about not starting Grace Nweke in the semifinal loss to Jamaica.

“No, what we’ve got to remember is she’s 20. When she played Mentor the day before she got the willies, so I’m not prepared to put people in when they are not ready, and they have to be. She’ll get a lot of confidence coming out of this game against a world class player. So, I just want to be careful with her.”

“I was really proud of Grace as well, every time Grace has been out there she’s been schooled by Mentor, so I thought she stood up really well and she’ll get a lot of confidence moving forward.”

Congratulations to the Silver Ferns – I wrote them off after yesterday’s performance but they deserved their win today. Great team effort and cohesion. Nweke definetely a future star and with Eke, Dunn, Watson and Burger should be good for WC next year. England just looked flat today – would have liked to see SDL injected. I agree they got a raw deal yesterday with the umpiring but in both games were simply out-played, out coached and need to strengthen their mental resilience when things don’t go their way. SBF had a great last game and loved how she tried to inject the ‘X’ factor into England’s game.