Mainland favourites for second grand final spot

2017 Beko Netball League - Round 12 Preview

Thursday 8 June, 2017

Round 12 Fixture
High Wire Trust Northern Comets v Hellers Netball Mainland
1pm, Saturday 10 June
High Wire Gymnasium, Papakura

Netball WBOP v Netball Central
2pm, Saturday 10 June
Tokoroa Events Centre, Tokoroa

Netball South v SKYCITY Marvels
1pm, Sunday 11 June
Edgar Centre, Dunedin
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Mainland favourites for second grand final spot

Hellers Netball Mainland sit in the box seat to book a place in the Beko Netball League Grand Final but coach Peter McInnes is wary of the “banana skin” waiting for them this week.

His side is sitting in second place on the league ladder and head to Auckland on Saturday to meet the bottom-placed High Wire Trust Northern Comets. The other key clash sees unbeaten Netball Central, who has already confirmed their place in the June 18 grand final, take on Netball Waikato Bay of Plenty (WBOP) who need the victory to have any chance of reaching the last two.

While Mainland will be favoured to take the win – beating the Comets 65-48 when they met last in Round 2 in Christchurch – McInnes knows their opponent had the potential of being their “banana skin” with the play-off in sight.

“They’ve been a team that’s been steadily improving so we know that we have to bring a good game and it’s a good taste of elimination netball,” he said.

McInnes is still waiting on the fitness of shooter Ellie Bird who has been out of action with concussion.

The 1.94m shooter has been a key target for Mainland in the shooting circle and if available may be on limited time with extra ANZ Premiership duties also on the cards.

McInnes said it had been a challenging transition to the second half of their campaign with only cameo appearances from the tall shooter after she was drafted into ANZ Premiership team the Silvermoon Tactix.

“It has been tricky. We had issues with injuries to goal attacks so we had back-up goal attacks and back-up back-up goal attacks and no back-up goal shoot,” he said with a laugh.

Bella James had been in the squad as another goal shooter but an ankle injury meant she did not play in the first six weeks of the national league. She got her first game in Round 7 and has been gaining more court time since.

“We’ve been lucky to have some experienced like Sophia (Fenwick) to pick up that shooting role when we needed and we’ve got Tiana (Placid) who has been playing so well at wing attack but is also a pretty handy goal attack,” McInnes said. “For us it’s been about consolidating those combinations in the circle with the changes we’ve had and we’ve been seeing that over the last couple of weeks.”

McInnes said it had also taken a few weeks to settle into the head role to replace Marianne Delaney-Hoshek who stepped into the top job with the Tactix.

“We’ve been lucky we’ve got a great team culture there so that made it easier and it’s been a great opportunity for me, but it’s also had its challenges taking over half way through our campaign.”

Meanwhile, Central has not missed a beat in an unblemished record after 11 rounds but will face a hungry WBOP unit in their last round-robin game in Tokoroa, knowing the hosts need victory to have any chance of making the grand final. The other Beko Netball League game sees Netball South host the SKYCITY Marvels in Dunedin.

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