Firebirds 56
Steel 41
The Southern Steel's proud home record against Australian teams picked up its first blemish last night in Invercargill, where they were upstaged by the resurgent Queensland Firebirds.
Up until last night the Steel had been invincible to visiting Australian sides at their home fortress of Stadium Southland, unbeaten through the first two seasons of the competition.
That was until they came head-to-head with a determined Firebirds side desperate to gain momentum following a slow start to the season.
After opening the season with three straight losses, the Firebirds kick-started their campaign last week with a 71-54 demolition of the Mystics. The trip across the Tasman did little to upset the Firebirds rhythm as they picked up where they left off last week, outscoring the home side 18-9 in a blistering opening quarter.
The Firebirds fast start took the parochial Southland crowd out of the equation early on, with the Steel's on-court play as lacklustre as their support.
The visitors extended their lead at every break, their attack end that looked so disjointed in the opening three weeks, slotting in to a comfortable rhythm.
The Steel defence simply could not match the Firebirds for pace, allowing midcourters Lauren Nourse and Sarah Wall to put unstressed ball into the hands of their 1.96m shooting weapon Romelda Aiken.
Australian shooter Natalie Medhurst had an extremely productive night as she enjoyed plenty of room to move around the shooting circle, slotting 27 of her 31 shots at goal.
Steel captain Megan Dehn admits her side struggled to contain the twin threats of Aiken and Medhurst.
"Nat Medhurst played a great game and they worked it around and only put it in when it was working, so I thought they were very smart down the attack end," said Dehn.
Nourse, the Firebirds captain, said last night's 15-goal victory gave her side's confidence another big shot in the arm after scoring their maiden win in round four.
"We knew once we got our first win on the board we could definitely do it for the weeks to come, so it felt really good and we enjoyed it," she said. "It feels really good in our attack end, it takes time to build those new combinations, but it's coming and we're really pleased with that."
The visitors put up more than double the shots of the Steel in the opening period, with the Southern side only managing 11 attempts at goal to the Firebirds' 23.
Trailing 18-9 at the first break, the Steel needed a big second-quarter effort to get themselves back into match, but they continued to make uncharacteristic errors on attack.
With the Firebirds attack functioning like a well-oiled machine, the visitors extended their lead to 33-20 at halftime.
A change to the Steel shooters in the second half, initially looked to spark a resurgence, with Julianna Naoupu introduced at goal-shoot in place of Daneka Wipiiti to add more mobility to the frontline. But as Naoupu's shooting stats dropped away later in the game, so too did any hope of a Steel comeback.
