Netball: Close games in first week of Hamilton indoor championship rounds

Lena Price at GA for Nottingham Castle Rangers. Photo / Judy Macdonald

Indoor Premier Championship Results
FTNC Premier 52 vs Marist Verdettes Old Girls 58
FTNC Premier Reserve 44 vs Waikato Diocesan Open A 23
Uni Premier 87 vs Nottingham Castle Rangers 32
St Peters Cambridge Open A 42 vs Marist Verdettes Premier 39

This was the first week of the championship round of premier indoor netball. This round saw the teams split into top four and bottom four and they will play a three-week round robin before playing finals.

In the top four are Uni Premier, Marist Verdettes Old Girls, FTNC Premier and Nottingham Castle Rangers.

In the bottom four are FTNC Premier Reserve, Marist Verdettes Premier, St Peters Cambridge Open A and Waikato Diocesan Open A.

In week one there were two close games.

St Peters Cambridge Open A had a real see-sawing battle against Marist Verdettes Premier.

St Peters Cambridge had a narrow two goal lead at the end of the first quarter only to see Marist Verdettes Premier ahead by a goal at half time with the score 21 goals to 20.

St Peters Cambridge then had a great third quarter to be ahead by seven goals only to see Marist Verdettes Premier have a resurgence in the final quarter to see them come within three goals.

The final score was 42 goals to 39. For St Peters, Georgia Edgecombe at goal defence and goal keep was outstanding and Sade Kaipara-Morrison at goal attack stayed strong under quite physical play.

Changes to the wing attack and goal shoot for Marist Verdettes Premier in the final quarter appeared to make a difference. Overall a closely contested match.

The other close game was that between Marist Verdettes Old Girls and FTNC Premier.

Both teams had WBOP Magic and WBOP Beko players which added to the excitement of the game.

Marist Verdettes Old Girls started strongly to lead by eight goals at the end of the first quarter only for FTNC Premier to narrow the gap to six goals by half time.

The half time score was 31 goals to 25. Marist Verdettes Old Girls then had a great third quarter to be leading by 10 goals at the break.
Another come back by FTNC Premier saw them narrow this to lose by six goals.

The final score was 58 goals to 52. Marist Verdettes Old Girls were happy with their ability to fight back each time the opposition started to close the gap.

Alison Priestley at GA for FTNC Premier Reserves. Photo / Judy Macdonald

Conal Grant at wing defence played well and was effective. For Marist Verdettes Premier it was a patchy performance but they continued to build on combinations with some great phases of play.

The return of Amorangi Malesala into the shooting circle provided consistency and urgency and the team was able to stay in contention for the whole game.

Overall a good performance up against an experienced team.

In the other bottom four game FTNC Premier Reserve were only ahead by a goal at the end of the first quarter in their game against Waikato Diocesan Open A.

But after that the game went all FTNC Premier Reserves way and by half time they led by ten goals with the score being 24 goals to 14. Waikato Diocesan had a very low scoring third quarter where the damage was done.

The final score was 44 goals to 23. For FTNC Premier Reserve Candyce Edwards at goal keep was great at putting pressure on the shooters with hands over the ball and obtained numerous rebounds.

For Waikato Diocesan the game was a chance leading into Upper North Island Secondary Schools to run lots of different combinations but overall an average performance for the team.

Uni Premier came back from their draw last week with a vengeance and they showed no mercy in their game against Nottingham Castle Rangers.

Uni Premier had a full team compliment including a number of WBOP Magic and WBOP Beko players.

The half time score was 44 goals to 19 and the fulltime score 87 goals to 34. Rangers started well with some accurate attacking play.

The first quarter was their best and overall this performance was an improvement on their last game against the top ranked team.

In their final quarter they were restricted to just four goals so an outstanding defensive effort by the Uni Premier team.

For Uni this was a much better game than last week in terms of connections and shooting percentages.

Eden Anderson coming onto goal shoot part way through the third quarter was not afraid to turn and shoot from anywhere in the circle.

For Rangers, Catherine Fraser Jones played a solid game at centre feeding some great ball into the shooters.