KEY POINTS:
Sterling performances from stalwarts Megan Hutton and Daneka Wipiiti helped Southern Steel score one of their best victories of the ANZ Championship netball competition last night.
They beat the Perth's West Coast Fever 58-43 in Dunedin in a match they never looked in danger of losing from the moment Wipiiti popped in the opening goal.
They led 16-8 after the first quarter, maintained the margin, 28-20, at halftime, increased it to 42-29 in the third quarter and sealed it with a 15-point margin win.
Goal-defence Hutton perhaps had the biggest influence on her team's result as she continually hassled West Coast's shooters Caitlin Bassett and Bianca Franklin into errors.
If she wasn't taking vital intercepts of the ball being fed into the circle, Hutton rattled the shooters with her fine anticipation and vision.
She went off with a right ankle problem five minutes from the end but said later it wasn't serious. But then the steel were home and dry - 53-37.
At the other end Wipiiti, now a strong contender for a place in the Silver Ferns, scored 41 goals from 46 attempts. Julianna Naoupu shot 17 from 26,
Fever's Bassett scored 29 from 38, Franklin 8 from 12 and replacement Nikala Smith 6 from 7.
It was clear from the 10-6 turnovers in Steel's favour by the middle of the third quarter that it would be difficult for their Western Australian opponents to change the rhythm or the game.
Hutton said her knee has been dodgy all season but it hasn't really stopped her.
"I think since we played the Pulse we've really taken a step up, just controlled our game and got better with each game," she told Sky Sport.
Steel captain Jenny May-Coffin, who came off after the first quarter with a calf muscle strain and was replaced by Wendy Telfer, said she wasn't surprised with the margin of victory.
"We prepared well for this game. We knew Perth would come here with nothing to lose." She would have like the scores gap to be bigger. "The potential was there but (we) lost a few balls at different patches of the game," she said.
"Things are just starting to gel for us. We're starting to let the ball go and we've started doing a few things that would have liked to have done earlier in the season - encouraging"
West Coast captain Stacey Rosman said errors made it hard for them to apply any real pressure on the home side.
"We had some great passages of play but then we became indisciplined on both attack and defence, so we've really got to step that up and play for 60 minutes, not in bits and pieces," she said.
With their fifth win from 10 games, the Steel moved into sixth place with 10 points.
West Coast remain in ninth spot in the 10-team competition.
- NZPA
