Bath Drown out Thunder

TeamBath consolidated second place in the Co-operative Superleague after holding on for a tense 46-44 victory at Northern Thunder.

It was a rolling Thunder side that took to the court in Bury buoyed by a satisfying seven-goal success over Hertfordshire Mavericks the day before.

But it was the visitors who took control of the game in the first quarter, winning the opener by five goals. TeamBath were keen to get their training moves into match-winning performances and their defence certainly showed that as Thunder struggled to find their way through the traffic on court.

Stacey Francis and Eboni Beckford-Chambers did well to slow the ball into Thunder's highly accurate Karen Greig. Although the shooter admits she never felt more pressure to land a goal than when Jade Clarke delivered her a bounce pass through the lengthy legs of Beckford-Chambers - hopefully video footage of that shot will turn up on YouTube.

That first fifteen minutes proved the undoing for Thunder as the second stanza finished 12-12, keeping Bath in front at half-time.

Changes were made by both teams for the next quarter. Krystal Gayle came on from Rachel Henry at WA; Bath gave Rosie Allison the GS bib and Asha Tett came off. The home side made more of their shooting chances, as they revved up their attack, but with fewer attempts than their opponents were only able to win the quarter by one goal.
Intent

Now thunderous in their intent to claw back the four-goal deficeit Northern, spurred on by a vocal home crowd and some good turnover ball, pulled to within a point at 39-40.

But the push for the lead was halted when Jade Clarke, Thunder's Player of the Weekend, was pulled up for footwork. The momentum was lost and TeamBath did what defending champions do so well and prevailed.

Northern Thunder coach Suzy Chapman said: "The team gave a fantastic performance as we carried our determination and passion from yesterday's game through to today." Despite the defeat she was encouraged by the display, adding: "The game and result shows we can compete against the best."

Captain Karen Greig felt they were beaten by the clock. "It was a slow start but we came back strong quarter on quarter but unfortunately we ran out of time," she said. "We hope we have put some shock waves through the netball world."

TeamBath head coach Jess Garland liked the way her side began, but admitted the game did not follow her plan after the first quarter. "We were pleased with the way we started as we have been working on defence have taken that from training onto the court. Our defence looked sharp and Stacey and Eboni applied pressure early on.

"The positives from that last quarter are that Northern Thunder could have won the game, but TeamBath weathered the pressure. It may have been ugly at times but we held on for the result."