Ama Agbeze believes Sasha Corbin will make strong comeback

Ama Agbeze has backed England team-mate Sasha Corbin to return stronger than ever after suffering a season-ending knee injury.

Corbin injured her anterior cruciate ligament while playing for Loughborough Lightning in the recent Vitality Superleague defeat to Hertfordshire Mavericks.

The England mid-courter required an operation which will mean she misses the rest of the campaign, but Agbeze is confident she can overcome this serious injury setback.

"It's quite devastating. Obviously she's pretty upset," said Agbeze, who also plays alongside Corbin at Loughborough.

"She'll be on the road to recovery quite quickly, but her season is over. She was in really good form, so it must be frustrating for her - not only to have the injury - but the fact she was doing so well and not being able to take that forward and see how she would go over the season.

If she can stay mentally strong she can definitely make her way back.

"She's been quite strong about it. She's probably cried once, but she's kept herself busy and she's already started doing rehab. I think she will probably go through a low period after her operation, but there is a lot of people supporting her, so hopefully that can help.

"I think she can come back stronger than ever. She's ruptured her Achilles and she's back to where she is now, so it's not the first injury she's got through. If she can stay mentally strong she can definitely make her way back."

Agbeze featured for England in last month's 3-0 tri-series defeat to world champions Australia.

The experienced defender, who was named player of the series, insists the scorelines were not always a true indication of three hard-fought matches.

"We would maybe have a brief lapse of two minutes and they would score six goals in a row for example," she said.

"Later on we might have another lapse and they score another run of goals. We might lose by 15, but actually if we took out those brief periods of the game, it would be quite close and potentially could compete for actually winning those games.

"It's frustrating, but there are positives to take. We got some of our inexperienced players on and I guess I had a reasonable performance individually."