I’m sure regular readers appreciate my honesty: I had my head in my hands today after 2 mins contemplating whether to leave! I, of course didn’t, it was a momentary lapse and I always had faith!
Saying that, I still don’t think we were completely on song. It was the game northern hemisphere netball fans never really wanted but we were where we were and had to get on with it!
I was absolutely dreading another ‘Glasgow 2014’ where you may remember we lost out to Australia and New Zealand by just 1 goal each, we were completely dejected and couldn’t get past Jamaica in the bronze medal match. I drank two bottles of wine without a glass, immediately after and still have the remnants of the hangover!
Thankfully we were a very different Roses today and thanks to the quite incredible Jade Clarke we eased past a very good South Africa team to take the bronze medals. (In some lights bronze looks gold you know! š)
It wasn’t what the crowd or the Roses came for but we roared them right through to the finishing whistle & the noise was deafening!
It quite emotional towards the final whistle, with chants of ‘we want Dunn’ preceding a clearly humble Rachel Dunn donning the GS bib for potentially her last match in in a red dress. I suspect she’s not the only one although no announcements have been made at the time of writing!
Australia v New Zealand
The final was an altogether different affair, goal for goal through most of it but it was the experience of the Kiwis that shone through.
It didn’t look that way at the start mind you when Maria Falou uncharacteristically fumbled the ball three times. Nerves perhaps, there was certainly no devine intervention no matter what she said in her post match interview!
New Zealand were led impeccably by Centre Laura Langman. A stalwart Kiwi who was banned for playing for her country because of the league she chose to play her netball in. That was until nearly a year ago when Noeline Taurua came in to coach NZ after their disastrous Commonwealth Games & has completely turned things around.
Taurua has done the impossible. There is no other way of describing it. All coaches, no matter what sport, will be ‘hats off’ tonight. What an incredible achievement.
You must also take your hat off to Casey Kopua, out of retirement & back in squad after a nasty knee injury & becoming a Mum with 9mins on the clock in a World Cup Final, she takes an interception a player half her age would be proud of. Pure class.
So, as we’ve seen so many times before the game went to the wire but this time it was NZ who take home the coveted World Cup trophy. Frankly, they have a HUGE thank you to Noelene Taurua for that. I am certain it wouldn’t have happened with out her.
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