In Round 5, however, the Fever players insist Australia’s netball-watching public saw them at their absolute worst, and have vowed never to repeat what was a disappointing lack of fight in a 10-goal loss to the Queensland Firebirds.
Beaten convincingly at both ends, against the Firebirds there was none of the hustle and clinical precision that had been the hallmarks of the Fever’s 4-0 start to the season, with the Firebirds players and crowd combining to hold the Fever to a very quiet afternoon.
But midcourter Verity Charles says that while the loss stung the squad, they also took confidence from the knowledge that they could not have played worse, and yet still only lost by 10 goals against a team that had its best game of the season.
“A loss is never pretty, I don’t like it and it’s frustrating. But I think the good thing is that we’ve probably got Firebirds on their best day, they played an amazing game, and we probably played our worst,” Charles says.
“It’s one of our strengths, that full court defence, and we just didn’t deliver that on the weekend, which is disappointing.”
“So I think the exciting part is, moving forward, we’ve got a lot more to give and I think we’ve seen the best of the Firebirds.”
Charles says the team found it hard to generate its own intensity on the road, and says home court advantage is something that can’t be underestimated in Super Netball.
“There was just no energy out there from us. you’ve got to create that ourselves and the Firebirds crowd is extremely loud and very vocal, so just (needed) to kind of take a breath, girls, and celebrate those good things that we’re doing and actually have a look at some of the positives and stop getting our heads down.”
The Fever will be at the other end of the spectrum this week as they return home to play in Perth against the second-placed Giants Netball, with a target of attracting 10,000 fans to a home game for the first time.
“It’s an eighth player out there, I think, having that 10K out there. Home court advantage is always amazing for us because it lifts our energy, it’s one less thing you have to worry about. When you’re away it’s something you’ve really got to focus on,” Charles says.
Despite the road trip to the west, the Giants pose a serious threat to the Fever, with their deep roster continuing to deliver results for the fledgling franchise.
Again in Round 5 it was tall target Kristina Brice who was called upon in the second half to give the Giants a boost, while Kristiana Manu’a came on for Sam Poolman in the third quarter and helped keep the Vixens to 12 goals for the term.
The Fever also turned to their bench in Round 5, with young defender Annika Lee-Jones called upon for the first time this season, having seen precious little action during her two seasons at West Coast.
Lee-Jones was given the unenviable task of shutting down Firebirds veteran Romelda Aiken, but performed admirably and is confident she can help her team again if her junior netball adversary Brice is out there on Saturday.
“I have played on Kristi Brice a fair amount in my under-age netball so if she comes onto the court I’m ready to take her on if I get the opportunity,” she says.
“Yeah it was awesome to finally get on court. I’ve been training really hard and it’s nice to see that the hard work finally paid off and I got the call-up.”
