Former player picking Ferns to bounce back

Jodi Brown.
Jodi Brown.
Do not write off the Silver Ferns.

That is the message from a former player as the team descends on Invercargill for its derby match against Australia tomorrow. Coming off a 49-45 loss to England and a narrow win over South Africa, there have been more than a few questions raised about the Ferns’ quality.

However, Jodi Brown said the team would be driven to bounce back against the world champion in its last match of the Quad series.

"There’s a lot of people writing them off, but I certainly wouldn’t write the Silver Ferns off," she said.

"I know being a Silver Fern, after you’ve had a loss you look at every detail possible and then try to come back with a vengeance and you usually do come back with a vengeance.

"Australia I don’t think will be happy with their two games either.

"They had a close win over England and a very close win over South Africa."

"So it’s going to be a really great game. I wouldn’t write New Zealand off like a lot of people are doing.

"Australia are really exposed in their defensive end, like we are.

"So if we can really kind of stamp our authority down the attack end and really lift our game attacking wise I think we’ll be in the ball park."

She said the team would have to look at its defensive structure across the court to stop the ball early before it got to goal shoot Caitlin Bassett.

That, along with being tidy on attack, were the two areas she identified as being key to beating Australia.

Brown said it was good to see the likes of England and South Africa stepping up to make international netball more competitive.

She felt England had done a good job and was benefiting from having several players in the Australian and New Zealand domestic leagues.

However, she also said it was a young Silver Ferns team and that needed to be taken into account.

Critical moments had hurt them, with the inability to execute under pressure being what Brown saw as the biggest downfall.

Despite that, it was still premature to jump to conclusion about where New Zealand rates with the Commonwealth Games looming early next year.

"We’ve got three tests coming up against England, which will be a really good gauge of where we are.

"Because while England have beaten us, I think it’s five times out of 88 games, they haven’t been consistently beating us.

"So they do beat us in a one-off game and then the next game we traditionally come back and beat them.

"I think over the next few series you’ll get those answers and you’ll get the feeling of where we’re sitting at and what we’re looking like."

She said the likes of Laura Langman and Maria Tutaia were huge losses as they had plenty of experience and brought quality.

Langman’s exclusion from the team has been arguably the most talked about subject in netball circles over the past year.

Brown saw both sides of the argument, although seeing as a ruling had been made, it was important for the younger players to make the transition.

Of the youngsters coming through, Whitney Souness was one that had impressed her, while she was hoping to see big things from shooters Maia Wilson and Monica Faulkner.

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