Start time: 2.30PM *Local Time
Venue: Priceline stadium, Adelaide
Broadcast: Channel 9 – Netball Live app
The season opener for the Adelaide Thunderbirds was one to forget, suffering an 18-goal defeat to West Coast Fever, but experienced captain – Leana de Bruin – believes there are plenty of positives for the team to focus on heading into Round 2 against GIANTS Netball on Saturday.
She said, “the weekend was a hard game to gauge, especially because they had Jhaniele (Fowler) in there; if you look across the board, teams scored 56/57 goals, which is how much we got as well – so was it a real bad game for us or is that what they (Fever) are going to do to all teams this season?
“The Giants don’t have a massive target like Fowler, but they have very smart players and are very well-oiled team – but I think we need to focus on what we can actually achieve ourselves – attacking wise to make sure we get the ball to our shooters in good spots and then defensively we just have to be a little bit smarter and work a lot better together.”
The Thunderbirds have wholesale changes to their squad this season, with a number of new faces coming in, blending both youth and experience – something that De Bruin thinks will be of benefit to the team in the long run.
She explained, “we have lots to learn from each other, if you are experienced or not, and it’s just about gelling together and using what our strengths are.
“The good thing about this competition is that you can still get points just by winning quarters and that is what we should look to do – it was a bit disappointing that we didn’t get to win that last quarter (against Fever) because we had the opportunity to do it, but it’s again learning about each other under that pressure and that experience definitely would have helped in those critical moments.”
The Thunderbirds will be facing a Giants team on the weekend that will be brimming with confidence, after beating Sunshine Coast Lighting 54-51 on Sunday in what was an epic Grand Final replay in Sydney.
Saturday’s game starts at 2.30PM *local time at the Priceline Stadium in Adelaide and tickets can be found here: https://supernetball.com.au/fixture/ – alternatively you can catch the match live on Channel 9 and the Netball Live App.
