The final day of the 2019 Netball World Cup preliminaries stage one saw some big wins from the competition’s heavyweights. Australia fell just one goal shy of bringing up the ton in its 75-goal victory over Sri Lanka, England handed Samoa a 66-goal defeat and New Zealand defeated Singapore by 68 goals.
South Africa held off Jamaica in a tight contest, winning 55-52 to continue its unbeaten start, while Malawi defeated Barbados 65-41 and Uganda got the better of Scotland 52-43 and Trinidad and Tobago triumphed 67-56 over Fiji.
World Cup newcomers Zimbabwe posted their second win of the tournament, scraping home with a two-goal win after scores were level at half-time and three-quarter-time against Northern Ireland.
Australia v Sri Lanka
The Diamonds produced the highest score of the tournament so far with a comprehensive victory over Sri Lanka on Sunday.
The Aussies triumphed 99-24 – the huge score coming despite Caitlin Bassett spending the game on the subs bench. The new combo of Caitlin Thwaites and Steph Wood shot at an incredible 97.1 per cent, netting 67 and 32 goals respectively and missing just three attempts between them for the match.
At the other end of the court, goalkeeper Sarah Klau worked hard to deny accurate Sri Lankan goal shooter Tharjini Sivalingam many opportunities, although she put through a handy 16 of her 19 attempts.
The Diamonds burst out of the blocks with 20 goals to seven in the opening term, and only further consolidated their lead each quarter thereafter.
The Aussies shot 27 goals to eight in the second quarter, 27 to seven in the third, and 24 to two in the last.
Australia finished as the top-ranked team in Pool A after the preliminaries stage one.
Jamie-Lee Price: Australia continued to share the wing defence position, with Jamie-Lee Price and Paige Hadley splitting the duties on Sri Lanka’s Gayanjali Amarawansa. Price found herself starting on the court again as she did in game one, and was part of an impressive Aussie defensive unit.
Caitlin Bassett: The Aussie captain spent the match on the subs bench, and will be ready and raring to go for Monday’s match against Barbados.
Australia is one of 12 teams to advance to the second stage of the preliminaries at the 2019 Vitality Netball World Cup. Pictures: Narelle SpangherEngland v Samoa
Home team England completed the initial stage of the world cup with a comprehensive victory over Samoa, keeping their opponents to single digits in each quarter of their 90-24 win.
Jo Harten was prolific in her three quarters on the court, shooting at 100 per cent accuracy in the 66-goal victory.
After bursting out to a quick 4-0 lead, England traded goals with Samoa for a short while before regaining ascendancy and entering the first quarter with a 15-goal lead.
England’s defence stood up to deny Samoa any freedom through their attacking end, allowing just 29 goal attempts across the entire match.
Jo Harten: Once again finding herself in goal shooter to start the match, Jo Harten had a day out against Samoa. She netted all 31 of her attempts in the first half before swapping off for Rachel Dunn in the third term. But Harten returned to the court in goal attack in the last quarter and kept her 100 per cent accuracy record intact, slotting through all 10 of her attempts to finish with an incredible 41/41. She also had eight goal assists and nine feeds for the match.
Next up:
The competition now moves into preliminaries stage two.
The top three teams from each group – 12 teams in total – advance and are still in the running to compete in the semi-finals.
The bottom-ranked team from each group – Sri Lanka, Singapore, Fiji and Samoa – now form their own group to compete in a round robin format to determine who will contest the 13th v 14th playoff and 15th v 16th playoff.
Monday, July 15
- Australia v Barbados 8pm AEST (coverage starts on 9Gem from 7.40pm)
- Jamaica v England 12am AEST (Tues)
- Zimbabwe v New Zealand, Northern Ireland v Malawi, Sri Lanka v Singapore, Fiji v Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago v Uganda, South Africa v Scotland
