Grant: “we’ve been training hard”
Silver Ferns captain Katrina Grant says the team is quietly confident ahead of Saturday’s opening match of the Netball Quad Series against South Africa.
The team departed for Brisbane on Thursday afternoon, buoyed by extra time together to test and embed combinations.
“We’re very confident and we’ve been training damn hard,” Grant said.
“We’ve had more time together now than we have had in the past so we hope that will give us a slight edge going forward.
“We just can’t wait to hit the court.”
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The Silver Ferns will open their Quad Series campaign against South Africa’s SPAR Proteas, a team they’ve beaten in all bar one of their previous encounters – that time came back in 1995.
But with Norma Plummer at the helm of the Proteas, Grant acknowledges they’ve made massive gains over the past two years.
“South Africa have improved a lot; they’ve been keeping up with us over the first half to three quarters in most matches. It’ll be a great test for us first up.”
With competition for starting spots high, Grant expects everyone to put their foot forward throughout the Series.
“The combinations over the last two weeks have been coming along really nicely. Everyone is getting court time with each other; now is the time to solidify that and see how we go in a Test Match,” Grand said.
“Defensively there’s a lot of competition for spots and everyone brings something different. Watch this space because everyone is still fighting for positions and needs to put their best foot forward.
“In most positions you’ll see some variations and this is time for us to do that. There’s not a lot of time leading into Commonwealth Games, so these are the matches where we need to try things.”
The Silver Ferns will open the Netball Quad Series against South Africa’s SPAR Proteas on Saturday 26 August at 7pm (NZT).
SKY Sport 3 will bring NZ fans all the action live from Brisbane starting at 5pm with Australia taking on England, followed by the Silver Ferns v South Africa. Delayed coverage of the Silver Ferns match will be shown on Prime from 11pm Saturday night (check local guides).