Netball: Magic clip the flyers' wings

Skipper Amigene Metcalfe clinched her first National Bank Cup netball player-of-the-match reward today after she masterminded Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic's crushing victory over the Flyers.

The 31-year-old wing attack engineered waves of attack to swamp the underdogs Flyers 69-36 at the Pettigrew-Arena, in Napier.

While admitting the award was special, Metcalfe, a physical education teacher at St Peters College in Cambridge, was quick to deflect praise on to her team.

"It's special but everyone else helps you to play well. Today was just an awesome team effort and it didn't matter who we put on they played to the game plan.

"We probably didn't have the links early as we'd like to have but it did come towards the end."

Magic stamped their supremacy in the first quarter, leading 19-9.

However, the injury-ridden Flyers showed some resilience in the next quarter with wing attack Becky Kupa playing a blinder.

Kupa, the shortest player in the match at 1.64m, created havoc despite a heavily strapped ankle and had a battle with Magic's 1.73m tall wing defence Laura Langman.

But it was in the third quarter that Metcalfe marshalled her troop to crush the Flyers' hopes of a revival.

Linking up with centre Louise Moffat, Metcalfe started feeding their power base in the form of the 1.9m goalshoot Irene van Dyke and goal attack Kiri Adams. The floodgates opened with the Magic scoring 19 goals while wing defence Langman and goal keep Karla Sutton thwarted any attacks by the opponents at the other end of the court.

Reflecting on van Dyk's dominance, Metcalfe said: "She's a real strength there and when you know she's got a little bit of space and you give the right pass, she'll get it. And that's the name of the game -- you want to get it to the goal as quick as possible.

"We've got some nice tall players in there and they've all got good hands and good jumps. We can change our game plan a little bit but the most effective way to get it there is to throw the big ones."

Such was their confidence that in the final quarter coach Noeline Taurua rested van Dyk, who became a New Zealand citizen on Wednesday, and Sutton, and gave Anna Senio, Casey Williams and Rebecca Gabel a run.

"It's good opportunity to put other players on and develop them at that level. It's the first time a lot of those players have been on at that level.

"One thing we've got is a good foundation of players and good stability around them and they delivered, so I'm happy.

"We let it go in the second quarter and that showed."

- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY