Netball: Ruthless Silver Ferns show their depth

Anna Scarlett made an impressive comeback in defence when the Silver Ferns demolished Samoa. Photo / Getty Images

The Silver Ferns' ruthless 92-28 demolition of Samoa in Porirua at the weekend conjured up mixed emotions.

While relishing such a clinical dominant performance from the Ferns in their first hit-out of the season, you could not help but feel sorry for the Samoans.

With the result never in doubt, Ferns coach Ruth Aitken's emphasis was on building combinations and honing the midcourt links between defence, and she took the opportunity to give all 12 of her squad a run.

But it would pay not to get too carried away with the Ferns' performance when each of the players was able to go about her job with absolute ease.

Such were the relative strengths of the two sides, the match was little more than an opposed training run - great for New Zealand, but rather a sad indictment on the international game.

The weekend's result is a just a continuation of the decline in Samoan netball. This time last year Samoa were sixth in the IFNA rankings, which earned them entry to the Fastnet world series in Manchester last October. Now they are barely clinging to ninth position, after suffering a series loss to South Africa last month, and finishing behind Fiji in the Pacific Series tournament back in June.

It appears the introduction of the transtasman league is partly to blame for this rapid downfall.

Samoa have in the past relied on New Zealand-based players to provide the experience in their team. Now any players of Samoan heritage who have ambitions of playing in the ANZ Championship are declining the opportunity to play international netball for Samoa.

With Samoa fielding such an inexperienced line-up who, for the most part, were woefully out of their depth, it would be foolish to judge the form of individuals based on Saturday's game.

However, as a collective, there were certainly some good signs in the Ferns' record-breaking win.

It was a ruthless display from the New Zealand side; they refused to take their foot off the accelerator even as they hurtled towards triple figures.

Such brutal efficiency was probably a reflection of the competition for places in the side.

Aitken opted to start with her top line-up and the starting seven set a strong platform, racing out to a 46-15 lead at halftime. The bench players then took up the challenge to better that over the second half - anddid so.

This suggests there is genuine depth on the Ferns bench, giving Aitken the ability to mix things up according to which opposition the team is facing.

Not every combination is going to be world-class - next week's tests against Jamaica will provide a much better gauge of which lines can be considered top-notch, and which are probably only options against minnow nations.

But certainly the defence end stood out at the weekend as brimming with exciting options, with Leana de Bruin and Anna Scarlett making impressive comebacks, while captain Casey Williams continues to develop into an outstanding goal defence.

Likewise, the two midcourt lines that got a run showed exceptional pace and flair, creating some interesting dilemmas for Aitken.

It has been a long time since New Zealand netball was in this position and it certainly bodes well for their Commonwealth Games defence in October.

But then we're not getting carried away, right?

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Australia have made a similarly impressive start to their international season, last night overwhelming a depleted Jamaican line-up 59-38 in Melbourne.