Diamonds Record Strong Win over South Africa in Quad Series Opener

The Australian Diamonds had a strong start to their netball Quad Series campaign with a convincing 25 goal win over the South Africa SPAR Proteas in Auckland last weekend.

The Diamonds Quad Series team consists of a mix of highly experienced players together with the addition of two new debutant players, with West Coast Fever athletes; Caitlin Bassett, Natalie Medhurst and April Letton all earning their place in the side.

Australia started the game with a strong line up. With Bassett in goal shooter and Medhurst in goal attack they were able to take control of the attacking goal circle right from the first whistle.

At the conclusion of the opening quarter the Diamonds had shown why they are the number one netball team in the world, recording a score of 19 to South Africa’s 10.

This dominance continued in to the second quarter with the Diamonds coming away with a 16 goal lead heading into the second half.

Heading into the third quarter a number of changes were made to Australia’s line up with head coach, Lisa Alexander, choosing to rest Bassett whilst also injecting fresh legs into goal defence, with Fever athlete April Letton taking to the court.

With Caitlin Thwaites entering the goal shooter position, other changes also included the movement of Claire McMeniman from goal defence to wing defence and the introduction of Liz Watson into the centre position.

Following the trend of keeping the Proteas to ten goals per quarter in the opening half, the new line up for the Diamonds were again able to replicate this result.

At the conclusion of the third quarter Australia’s shooting combinations had managed to put 50 goals on the board whilst South Africa were limited to a total of 30.

The three quarter break again saw changes to the Australian sides line up with debutants Kristiana Manu’a and Stephanie Wood taking the court and consequentially being named Diamond 169 and Diamond 170.

Stephanie Wood entered the court at goal attack seeing Natalie Medhurst move to the bench, whilst Gabi Simpson also re-entered the game in the wing defence position.

In the end Australia proved too strong for the South African side taking out the game 68 to 43 having played all twelve members of their team.

The Western Australian shooters shot well with Caitlin Bassett finishing with 28 from 30 goals at 93% and Natalie Medhurst recording 12 from 16 goals at 75%.

This game was the first meeting of these two sides since the Netball World Cup in August of 2015.

At the conclusion of the game the head coaches of both teams expressed their delight at the performance of the South African side and the level of improvement they’d shown since the World Cup.

The SPAR Proteas fought hard in this opening match of the Quad Series, ending the game with a ten goal improvement on the margin from the two sides’ previous meeting.