2023 QUAD SERIES (Jan) – SA/Aus/NZ/Eng

No changes made by either team for Q2. What’s impressive for Aus is their fast hands and feet, which are even quicker than normal, usually but not always set up by Wood. Their ball placement around the circle to feeders is the perfect balance of within reach and not able to be deflected, it’s very sharp. Also Koenen’s moves are very well judged in terms of timing and sneaking through space.

Still 23-21 to NZ.

Notable how many times a player is forced over the baseline resulting in a penalty – mostly shooters landing slightly out of court. Both sets of defenders are restricting the opponents’ space.

Wow, Wood is putting on a show! Such great space and timing. Kiwis are using their plan A well with safe athletic takes by Nweke. Still very hard to get any gains at all. 24-all with 7 until half time.

I think Aus are really missing a strong experienced GD right now. Klau isn’t having much luck against Nweke. If Weston was here, Bruce would definitely have been moved back to GK by now

No changes from either team to start Q3. I’m a bit annoyed at the commentators saying “They have to stop Nweke” and that Klau and Bruce need to adjust, when it’s blindingly clear that CRAMPTON is the one to stop. At least Madi Browne said she would change Braz and use Price instead. But obviously Marinkovich thinks she can coach and adapt Ash Brazill’s game plan.

Note that Marinkovich was interviewed and said “we have rotations to go to, but we’ll see what happens”. She wants the players to work things out for themselves. And quickly Aus scores 3-0 so it’s 33-31.

Koenen continues to be a marvellous foil for Wood’s creativity. They both know where to move and where to pass, with just a momentary change of body position, which simply can’t be seen by the Kiwi defenders.

A couple of good wins for Aus, forcing errors by NZ – Nweke steps over the baseline, and a centre pass that was untouched. It’s now 38-34 to Australia after 5 mins in this quarter. And then Bruce causes a fumble from Ekenasio – seems like Aus are finding it so easy in this championship quarter.

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Andrew Kennedy.

Ian is exactly right. It’s 10-3 to Aus in this Q, and it’s all due to errors from NZ. Clearly they need some fresh legs. And now Burger cautioned for persistent contacts.

You can even see that Nweke can’t just so strongly and confidently now. And Ekenasio missed a completely simple penalty with both Aussies out. That’s a big concern for NZ as Aus apply the same pressure. 40-37 to Aus.

Not really sure why Jane Watson’s contacts are not called as persistent as she crashes into stationary players and then says sorry whoops. At least Anzo Kemp kind of cautions Karaka, but she totally misses the intimidation of foot stamping by Watson.

So now it seems that the teams are firing up and ready to smash each other!

Q3 was pretty disastrous for NZ, makes me wonder why Taurua would let that keep going. The whole team was flat, and statistically it was probably Heffernan that needed to be benched the most. The defenders were getting lazy and attracting a lot of whistle, you could really have put on Jury, Souness and Selby-Rickit at any time, if only to give the starting players a rest.

Diamonds beat Ferns 14-9 in Q3, so it’s 44-40 now with Aus ahead. Should be fascinating to see the coaching changes and tactics.

We see now NO CHANGES from either team.

So just as I said it, Jury replaces Watson and Souness replaces Heffernan, FINALLY.

AMAZING. The umpires conferred about whether a goal was scored or not. What we can see on the replay is that Bruce had her hands around Nweke’s head, Nweke moved back and pushed her, they both fell over, meanwhile Ekenasio sunk a goal and the umpires didn’t know, so they had a TOSS UP!!

That play will go down in legend.

Phew. So it’s now 52-45 to Australia with 5 mins to go. That situation was so farcical that it probably won’t affect anyone except the umpires.

Now all the players are taking a lot of liberties and pushing each other, they know that Kemp has lost control and they just need to do anything they can to get the ball.

First quarter the Ferns scored 19 goals.

The second half they only scored 19 goals..

If you can watch this game, please do, it was enthralling!

Although we can analyse this to the cows come home to roost (?), the simple fact is that my favourite stat, the turnovers, told the story. Aus had 12, NZ had 19. With similar awesome shooting, you just cannot win with a deficit like that, and those turnovers mostly came in the third quarter (and fourth to an extent), when we were screaming for NZ to bring on fresh legs. I didn’t think that this was a lesson that Taurua had to learn. What we’ve learnt is that Marinkovich has athletes that can back up and perform, and when they tire and there’s more pressure, they can still deliver.

Goodnight everyone! Especially Ian!