Netball: Canterbury show right tactics to take Pulse

Jodi Brown, of Tactix, in front of Pulse's Hannah Broederlow in the ANZ Championship netball...
Jodi Brown, of Tactix, in front of Pulse's Hannah Broederlow in the ANZ Championship netball match at Te Rauparaha Arena in Porirua. Photo by NZPA.
It should surprise no one that Central Pulse remain a lonely last after their latest outing in the trans-Tasman netball league here today.

The Wellington-based side slumped to their ninth consecutive defeat this season when going down 45-59 to Canterbury Tactix at Te Rauparaha in Porirua.

Canterbury Tactix set out their stall early as immaculate shooting from Jodi Brown and Angela Mitchell carried them to a 15-11 advantage in the opening quarter.

Goal shoot Brown and goal attack Mitchell did not miss an attempt between them during this period and although the misses inevitably came the flood of ball coming their way enabled the southerners to pull clear.

The Pulse seriously lacked some tall timber in the circle to challenge the Tactix, while their turnover rate was such that the visitors had the issue settled by halftime.

The Tactix led 34-23 at the main interval, at which stage Pulse goal attack Paula Griffin had outscored her goal shooting partner Te Amo Amaru-Tibble 12-11.

That unusual trend lasted the entire match as Griffin worked to help out her heavily marked colleague.

Despite being talked up by some commentators, the Pulse again failed to flatter, their shortcomings being exposed by a Tactix team posting just their third victory of the season.

Two of those wins have come against the competition stragglers but today's success was much superior to the 49-46 scoreline enjoyed by the Tactix over the Pulse just two weeks ago.

The ease of the win was evident at the third quarter break when Tactix coach Helen Mahon-Stroud had the luxury of benching Mitchell and workaholic wing attack Maree Bowden and replacing them with Anna Thompson and Phillipa Finch.

The change in personnel barely interrupted the Tactix's flow as they ran away with the game, losing Brown midway through the last stanza to a minor ankle problem.

Brown left the game after having made an invaluable contribution, shooting at 90 percent accuracy by slotting 36 of her 40 attempts.

Pulse captain Cushla Lichtwark, who was employed at both wing defence and goal defence over the 60 minutes, was frank in her appraisal of her team's performance.

"There are obviously still a lot of lessons to be learnt," she said.

"We didn't put our best game out on court and you have to in this competition.

"We had worked on a whole lot of things and hoped to put them on the court this week and we didn't come through on game day." Her Tactix counterpart Julie Seymour was impressed how her players all shone at various times.

"Different people at different times did some great stuff."