Semis expected to be close fought affairs

All four coaches with teams involved in Netball Wairarapa premier one competition semi-final matches at the Genesis Recreation Centre tonight are agreed on one thing they should be close-fought affairs.
The leading two teams at the conclusion of the top six round, Harcourts and St Matthew's Collegiate, will meet in one match with the winner gaining automatic qualification to next weekend's grand final.
And it won't necessarily for curtains for the losers either, as under the repechage system they will then front up tomorrow night again at the recreation centre to take on the winner of tonight's other semi-final between third and fourth seeds, Gladstone All Blacks and Kuranui College.
Harcourts have yet to taste defeat this season but they came close last weekend when St Matthew's failed by just the one goal to at least share the honours.
Coach Geraldine Carroll believes that result was timely for Harcourts for it provided them with a decent wake-up call going into the most important part of the season.
She said she had told her players beforehand that St Matthew's would be tough to bowl but that a lack of consistency at times suggested the message may not have had the desired effect.
"I think we may still have been a bit complacent, we needed to be more urgent than we were," she said. "I wouldn't think that will happen again."
While respecting the improvement made by St Matthew's through the season, particularly the speed at which they can move the ball through the court, Carroll is adamant Harcourts can again thwart their challenge. "I think we may have the edge in the midcourt and in the shooting circle and hopefully that will be enough to get us home," she said.
St Matthew's coach Jo McKenzie is viewing tonight's game in another light. She considers the one-goal loss from last weekend will have done more for her team's confidence than that of Harcourts and that victory is now an achievable target.
"They (Harcourts) do have a lot of experience and skill but if we keep our heads we can do it," she said. "It's the mental side of things which will be important for us, skills-wise we are right up there."
Gladstone All Blacks and Kuranui College are also meeting for the second time within a week with Kuranui College having a narrow win last Friday.
The students have been the surprise packets of the premier one competition this season with their improvement illustrated by a recent seven-goal loss to Harcourts, a huge difference from the 50 goal beating they received from that same team just last season.
Coach Lynda Strange concedes Kuranui College have already exceeded expectations by making the semis but she is justifiably optimistic they can again prove very competitive against Gladstone All Blacks.
"It is a game we can win and that's how we will be approaching it," she said. "We know it will be tougher than what it was last week but we can lift our effort too & there shouldn't be much in it."
Strange said Kuranui's tactics would revolve around providing a consistent service to their shooters whose accuracy in that area was one of the team's major attributes. "We don't have the height of some of the other sides but we generally make our shots count and that's been a real plus," she said.
Gladstone All Blacks coach Sandra McNab labels her team the "enigma" of the semi-finals, good enough to make it through to the competition decider but too inconsistent to rate with confidence.
"Consistency has been the bugbear for us all season, when we play well we are capable of beating anyone," she said. "But when you play well one week and indifferently the next it's hard to get too confident, isn't it?"
McNab said excuses could be made for Gladstone All Blacks in their most recent loss to Kuranui because they were without a couple of their regular players but she herself refuses to accept that.
"We were nine or ten goals down at one stage and got back to trailing by one goal, we should have been able to win from there," she said. "Again we weren't consistent enough, end of story."
McNab sees the strength of their defence being Gladstone All Black's main asset and she is hopeful they can cause enough headaches for the Kuranui shooters to put them off their stride.
"We don't have the same depth in the shooting area as we do in the defence so we need to restrict the goals scored against us to manageable proportions," she said.
The Harcourts v St Matthews match will get under way at 6pm and the Gladstone All Blacks v Kuranui College match at 7.30pm. Tomorrow's semi-final will start at 6pm.