Ruby the midseason jewel in the crown

It was one from two for the Bull Sharks on their Ipswich road trip with Bond's Ruby side taking the points over a fellow finals aspirant.

The Ruby team secured a top four ladder position with their excellent seven-goal win, but Bond’s Sapphire squad were punished heavily for a mid-match lapse in concentration.

How it unfolded

Ruby

Bond and Ipswich went goal-for-goal early until a late flurry by the Bull Sharks secured the visitors a three-goal lead at quarter time. The Jets came out firing in the second term, but despite the Bull Sharks being down by a goal at the main change, Bond held their nerve and pulled away to claim their best win of the season thus far.

Only percentage is keeping Bond from third place on the ladder.

Coach Kim Boland said her team had a ‘no fear, no excuses’ mantra ringing in their ears ahead of the game, and she was delighted to see her team play to script.

“When we played Jets in the first round we lost focus in in the third quarter,” she said.

“We didn’t want that to happen again so we made a full team commitment to leave nothing in the tank.

“Our defensive end of Harriet Nicholson and Tehya Hyssett was outstanding again, particularly against Sapphire-level shooter Naomi Solomona who was brought in to replace one of the Jets’ Ruby Shooters.”

Boland also liked what she saw up forward.

“Abby Boland and Elka Macaulay were outstanding,” she said. 

“Abby shot at 40 from 44 – that’s an impressive 90 percent.

“I really liked the connection that is growing and getting stronger and stronger with every game in the mid court. 

“Molly Parry, Lily Phillips and Joesi Gisinger all had fantastic games.

“It was a full team effort that got us over the line this week.”

Sapphire

Coach Bec Stower was happy to see an improvement on Bond’s last performance against the ladder-leading Jets, but she was again left to lament her team’s lack of consistency and unforced error rate.

They were able to match their highly ranked opponents for sections of the game, including winning the final quarter, but a third quarter lapse exposed the gap between the Bull Sharks and the competition’s pacesetters.  

“After a slow start we got ourselves back in the game to be only two down at the quarter break,” she said.

“But what really hurt us was allowing the Jets 10 unanswered goals in the third term. 

“To our credit, we refocused and won the final quarter.”

Despite the defeat, Stower was encouraged by several individual performances.

She pointed to a strong performance from GK Maddie Ryan who held her own against a much taller opponent the Jets had brought in from Super Netball franchise GWS.

And the offence was again a highlight.  

“In attack Natasha Robinson injected some energy out the front at GA to connect our mid-court so they could feed Kaylin van Greunen from circle edge,” she said.

“Kaylin had another outstanding game against strong opponents. She was up against another ring in, Zoe Walker, a player with experience for the Tactix in the ANZ Championship in New Zealand, and also Nora Misa, a Samoan representative defender.”

Next week

Another away trip for Bond – they’ll head to South Pine Sports Complex on Sunday for games against Brisbane North Cougars.

The Cougars’ Ruby and Sapphire teams both lost to the Gold Coast Titans on the weekend.