KEY POINTS:
The Northern Mystics have been branded unfit and poorly conditioned after their dismal start to the ANZ Championship season.
Despite boasting a wealth of firepower, Yvonne Willering's side are languishing at the bottom of the table after opening the season with three straight losses.
Several commentators have suggested the star-studded Auckland line-up are off the pace because the team are lacking in fitness.
Much has already been made of former Silver Ferns defender Vilimaina Davu's quest to regain her fitness, but several other top players also look underdone.
And in a tough competitive league like the ANZ Championship, the Auckland franchise is being made to pay for it.
They looked sluggish in the weekend's shock loss to the West Coast Fever, as they struggled to cope with the speed and the tight man-on style of defence from the Perth-based side.
The attack end was guilty of sitting back and waiting for the ball to come to them, rather than driving on to the ball, while defensively the Mystics struggled to match it with the speed and guile of the Fever.
Mystics coach Yvonne Willering said her side struggled to cope with the aggressive in-your-face style of the visitors.
"You could say we're not used to that tough, really physical game, well tough luck, that's what this competition is all about so it's time to get used to it," she said.
"It's about individual responsibility and everyone needs to do their job and get tougher."
Netball legend and former Silver Ferns coach Lois Muir believes fitness is key in tackling the Australian style of play. She said the relentless defence and short, fast passing game of the Aussies meant players had to do more work to shake their opposition player off and driver harder on to the ball.
"[The Australian players] just sit on [the Kiwis] as they go to the ball and then they're there aggressively marking as soon as they get it," she said.
"And we don't handle that quite so well. But the players need to get harder and more astute - and they've got to be fit."
The highly fancied Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic side also stumbled against an Australian side in round three, falling to the NSW Swifts - a team they beat by 63-48 in a full-length pre-season match in Te Awamutu last month.
Though it was the Magic's first loss of the season, their opening two wins have been less than convincing, indicating Noeline Taurua's side have a lot of work to do if they are to live up to their billing as title favourites.
