Steph Wood knows the Round 13 clash with GIANTS Netball may not be pretty but she is confident her team can get over the line and cement the Club’s spot in the 2021 Suncorp Super Netball finals.
Games between Sunshine Coast Lightning and GIANTS are routinely physical, close fought contents and the Vice Captain is expecting no different tomorrow.
“It’s a really tough match up, we’ve had some great tussles over the years – last year it came down to the last 10 seconds,” Wood said.
“It’s always a physical match coming up against them – you definitely know you’ve played them the day after and right now they are playing some great netball.
“They have some prolific 2-point shooters in their team, so we need to make sure we stop them.”
Wood said Lightning are eager to improve their conversion rate to ensure they are creating scoreboard pressure against the GIANTS, especially given their penchant for Super Shots.
“We can overcomplicate things at times – we need to go back to basics,” she said.
“If we have a high CPA conversion rate and put that together with a good turnover-to-score conversation rate that puts us in a good spot.
“We don’t need to play pretty netball to win, we need to find a way during those tough moments to make sure we’re scoring off them.”
Despite the white noise surrounding South-East Queensland’s recent lockdown, consistency in preparation has been vital this week.
Wood said the team have had productive and honest conversations addressing their output in recent weeks, and know it will take a strong performance to beat one of the competition’s top teams this season.
“It’s going to be hard work, it’s not going to be free flowing netball which we’ve got to be okay with,” she said.
“We have to make sure in those moments that we stick together and we’re not getting too isolated from each other.
“We know we are a good team, we can put out a great performance but it’s not just talking about it, it is now going out and doing it individually and as a collective.”
Sunshine Coast Lightning will take on GIANTS Netball on Tuesday 3 August 2021 in a closed match at Nissan Arena, under strict COVID-19 protocols – including additional measures as part of a Queensland Government exemption.
Maddie Hinchliffe has again been promoted into the squad of 10 for today’s match, to replace Binnian Hunt.
