2024 Test Series – Australia v England (September)

We’ve got changes for Aus for Q3.
Garbin Austin Watson Moloney Aryang Garrett Klau
Tchine Housby Pearson Allison Cobden Fadoju Williams (unchanged).

Garrett looked pretty close to a tip over the shot from Housby. Housby is very hard to intimidate….

Twice now we’ve seen Fadoju do a reject in the midcourt over Austin. Keira wants to move the ball really fast, and Fadoju’s jump is ridiculous. Aus got the pickup both times.

Jeez Housby is good – she keeps thinking clearly whilst being tenacious. Only one turnover, letting the ball bounce in more when there’s space. More goals than Tchine, too.

Garbin 7/7 and Austin 0/0 this quarter. Not ringing alarm bells, but need to mix it up a bit.

Diamonds strategy idea: stop throwing it to Funmi! She’s so dominant at the moment.

England have suddenly clawed back in front 42-41, three quick goals in a row. It isn’t due to Ellis coming on at GK, Austin did another quick release from a low position in the midcourt and it was snaffled. But she’s partly forgiven as she got an intercept on the transverse line, almost identical to one she got in the first test.

I continue to be amazed at how Garbin’s hold and jump is enough to beat Williams and Fadoju. Certainly helps with the experienced timing and weighting of (in this case) Moloney.

Austin got another shot in in the dying seconds, this time it was with three seconds left. How much are they practising this? – because it’s really working.

That quarter was 16-all, while England tightened up their turnovers, they also only got 2 gains (Fadoju of course) and they had some misses which they didn’t convert. Australia’s stats are more similar each quarter.

ICYMI There’s a young man in the Parmy Army driving the crowd wild with his dance moves.

A lot of us have been discussing fatigue of the England touring sides, as they tend to play their best in the first test. Obviously they’re doing well here, IMHO this is because they’ve got the right players on the court in their best positions, but we’ve seen a few of them stack it (Tchine, Fadoju) just now, in takes or contests they’ve been landing, is that the fatigue we’re looking for? Or is the “fatigue” just general experience and composure differences between the sides. The teams on court at the moment are not significantly different in experience.

Everyone is giving 100%, so it’s going to come down to a few borderline moments. Fadoju just got an intercept, converted quickly by Tchine, now it’s level, it’s going to be exciting! 56-all

Here I was thinking there might be a missed shot, and there was a held ball! And now a ?? stepping (I didn’t seee it).

Ian I’m not sure if the calls were “weird”, but there were a few down this end of the court (the one where Diamonds ended the game shooting) that I didn’t quiet get or quite agree with. I would call them “borderline”.

Well that game was won by Fadoju on her own. Congrats to England!