And with every team pushing for every minute of every quarter to secure those valuable bonus pints, some players have set statistical marks that may never be beaten.
Out of the 12 key statistical areas, eight have had new records set in 2018. Here’s who’s been setting the benchmarks this year!
POSITIVE STATS
Goals
Jhaniele Fowler from the West Coast Fever has set the competition alight with her prolific scoring. In Round 1 and Round 8, Fowler scored 66 goals, which is a Suncorp Super Netball record. In Round 1 against the Thunderbirds, Fowler scored all but eight of her team’s goals. She is one of the key reasons the Fever are flying high in 2018.
Attempts
In Round 8, Jhaniele Fowler had 73 attempts for her 66 goals, with a shooting percentage of 90.4%. This season she has had 119 more attempts than any other shooter. Her 73 attempts is a Suncorp Super Netball record.
Feeds And Goal Assists
In Round 9 against the Swifts, Liz Watson from the Vixens was a ball magnet like we’ve never seen before in Super Netball. She fed the ball to a shooter in a shooting position 63 times, leading to 40 goal assists. This equates to 63.5% of her feeds leading directly to a Vixens goal. With the Vixens scoring 65 goals that game, Watson was responsible for 61.5% of her team’s total.
Centre Pass Receives
The Swifts’ wing attack Paige Hadley had one of her busiest games last weekend against the Giants, racking up 38 centre pass receives. This is a Suncorp Super Netball record. Hadley is only averaging 20.6 centre pass receives per game, so in this game she nearly doubled her average.
Intercepts
The intercept has the ability to both turn a game and get the crowd involved. Two of the game’s best have both taken seven intercepts in a game this season. In Round 4 against the Magpies Karla Pretorius from the Lightning grabbed seven, and in Round 10 against the Thunderbirds, the Magpies’ Sharni Layton set the 2018 mark. Pretorius is averaging 2.8 intercepts per game and Layton is averaging 2.3, so both players more than doubled their average. The current game record was set last year by Layton with eight.
Deflections
Geva Mentor from the Lightning is the game’s best deflection-getter, with 75 for the season so far. She has an uncanny ability to get her hands (or fingertips) to the ball, making it extremely difficult for opposition attacking players to feed the circle. In Round 5 against the Thunderbirds and Round 8 against the Giants, Mentor was able to change the direction of the ball 13 times. She is averaging 7.5 per game, so she is on track to have more than 100 deflections for the second season running.
Rebound – Offensive
Romelda Aiken from the Firebirds is joined this season by Shimona Nelson from the Thunderbirds and Jhaniele Fowler from the Fever with six offensive rebounds in a single game. Aiken achieved this in Round 1 against the Swifts, while Nelson achieved this twice this season – in Round 3 against the Magpies and Round 6 against the Swifts. Fowler snared her six rebounds in a game last week against the Lightning. Aiken’s nine in 2017 is still the benchmark for an individual game.
Rebound – Defensive
If a shooter misses a goal against the Lightning, they know they will be in for a fight to get the rebound. Geva Mentor is leading the way with 18 defensive rebounds overall, with five in the one game in Round 4 against the Magpies. The Magpies missed 11 goals with five of those misses landing in the hands of Mentor. Mentor is averaging 1.8 per game. The Giants’ Sam Poolman and Sharni Layton from the Magpies hold the record with six in one game last season.
NEGATIVE STATS
Penalties
Kadie-Ann Dehaney from the Vixens has conceded the most penalties in one single game – giving away 40 in Round 10 against the Firebirds. The 40 included 22 contacts and 17 obstructions. Dehaney has conceded 78 for the season, with a game average of only 13, which has her outside the top 20. The Vixens will be hoping that was a one-off and not the norm for her going forward.
General Play Turnover
In 2018 we broke up turnovers to two separate categories – general play turnover (GPT) and ‘missed goal turnover’ (MGT). A GPT is any turnover that doesn’t occur in the process of going for goal. Shimona Nelson from the Thunderbirds has set the mark for the most number of GPTs with 10 in Round 9 against the Giants. That 10 was made up of seven bad hands/dropped passes, two contact penalties and one step/footwork. Nelson has turned the ball over in general play the most out of any player, with 58 for the season. However, she is only ninth for MGTs with 16.
Intercept Pass Thrown
Another stat introduced in 2018 was ‘intercept pass thrown’. Leading this stat is Kaitlyn Bryce from the Thunderbirds, who had six in Round 6 against the Swifts and has 23 overall. Maddy Proud from the Swifts also threw six intercept passes in Round 5 against the Magpies. Proud has thrown 22 for the season.
