Fever Show Promise in First Matches of 2018

Last weekend saw the West Coast Fever take on the Queensland Firebirds in a series of pre-season matches played at the State Netball Centre and the Mandurah Recreation and Aquatic Centre, the Fever coming out on top on both occasions.

The two sides met for the first time in 2018 on Saturday at the State Netball Centre, where former Australian Diamonds captain Laura Geitz made her illustrious return to the purple dress after giving birth to her son in February of last year.

After a long preseason to date the Fever came out determined to show both the home crowd and their opposition that they are not a team that should be taken lightly.

Flying out of the gates, the locals ran away to a seven goal lead at quarter time.

The second quarter saw the Queensland side hit back, wrestling the margin back to two heading into the main break.

The Firebirds carried their momentum into the second half, gaining the upper hand early in the third.

It was not long before the Fever gained some momentum of their own, reasserting their authority to carry an eight goal lead in to the final term.

On the back of strong efforts all the way down the court, the home side ran out 11 goal victors, gaining the one up on their opposition heading in to game two.

Fever Head Coach, Stacey Marinkovich said “we have had some really key measures we wanted to hold ourselves to in attack and defence, so it was really challenging ourselves to make sure to do that under pressure.”

“The combinations have room to grow, particularly the connections between the midcourt and going in on the feed.”

“We just need to work on our consistency, we came out really strong in the first quarter, so we need to be able to replicate that over and over again.” 

Sunday saw both sides travel down to Mandurah for another hard fought battle.

Keen to continue their form from the day before, the Fever once again started the game strongly.

The Firebirds also began well with the first term going back and forth, the Fever eventually coming out one goal ahead as the whistle blew.

The second quarter saw the visitors pull in front before the West Coast Fever fought back to level the score at half time.

Fuelled by a sell-out Mandurah crowd the home side came out firing in the third, a number of effortless circle feeds into goal shooter Jhaniele Fowler helping the side gain a two goal lead at the final break.

The visitors were unable to gain any ground on the scoreboard in the last quarter with the Fever pulling away to a five goal lead with less than five minutes to go. 

Holding on to their lead, the West Coast Fever came out on top for the second day in a row, beating their opponents by five. 

“We built on a few things from our game yesterday, and that’s what it’s all about,” said Stacey Marinkovich.

“We’re playing an exciting brand of netball and it’s the West Coast Fever way of playing and that’s what we want to challenge teams with.”

Fever now return to training in preparation for their final series of pre-season matches which will be played in Sydney in March.