Pulse braced for Steely welcome   21 Apr 2016

April 21, 2016
Pulse braced for Steely welcome

Coach Tanya Dearns is anticipating another tight local derby when the Central Pulse meet the pace-setting Southern Steel in fourth round ANZ Championship netball action in Invercargill on Sunday.

Early indications suggest the New Zealand Conference will be hotly contested, pundits already being thrown awry as the plucky new-look Pulse continue to test the waters against an equally-unheralded yet unbeaten Steel, in a top-of-the-table match-up.

``Every team in the New Zealand Conference is as competitive as the next and it’s not going to be as clear-cut perhaps as everybody thought it was going to be,’’ Dearns said.

After three rounds, the Pulse have experienced all possible outcomes after banking the full card of a win, loss and draw, Dearns not tempted at this stage to give her team a pass mark.

``Let’s just say it’s still a work in progress,’’ she said. ``Certain parts of our game I’m happy with but there are elements in our games to date that have been consistent let-downs and that we need to fix.’’

To their credit, the Steel have managed to earn two wins on the road and a draw at home, returning to their fortress in Invercargill to welcome the Pulse.

``They’ve just quietly gone about their business, there’s nothing flashy or starry,’’ Dearns said. ``They’re a bit like a sleeping giant. They’ve got a new coach, have a fairly consolidated squad which has been together for a couple of years now and they’ll probably be quietly confident at home.’’

The Steel have responded enthusiastically to the arrival of popular new coach Noeline Taurua, who has the ability to provide the x-factor, an element not lost on her old friend and former team-mate Dearns, who has a healthy respect.

The Pulse showed plenty of character in their latest drawn outing against the Northern Mystics with a series of stirring fightbacks to dig themselves out of the mire but the catch-cry for Dearns against the Steel is consistency.

``The work we’ve done off court shows itself in the way they look after each other when their backs are against the wall but in saying that, we shouldn’t be putting ourselves in that position in the first place because we’re not going to be able to do that every game,’’ she said.

``When we’re letting the ball go and playing with width and length, it’s really good. However, there are times where we can get a little insular, lose our connections with each other and that’s when we go into our shell a bit and that can leave us in chase mode.

``If we start well, it’s about building on any turnovers we get through each quarter….and we’ve got to keep doing that, so it’s all about more consistency.’’

ENDS.

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