Sam Bird hails 'fantastic' second half from Severn Stars to beat London Pulse
Monday 18 March 2019 17:29, UK
Severn Stars head coach Sam Bird hailed a "fantastic" second half as they came from behind to prevail over London Pulse 60-51 in Round Ten of the Vitality Netball Superleague.
Stars' hosts, the Superleague's newest franchise, showed in front of the Sky Sports cameras in Round Nine just how much they are progressing by pushing Team Bath all the way, so Bird knew what they would be facing.
"We needed to come and win today," said the head coach after their match at the Copper Box Arena.
"I wasn't happy with our first half performance; we got a lead of 7-2 and threw it away with silly errors. But the way we responded in the second half was fantastic."
"This should give us lots of confidence. Next up is Loughborough who are a good side performing well, but I believe if we perform well for longer phases of play we can beat anyone in the League."
Severn Stars arrived in London off the back of a promising performance in defeat against league-leaders Wasps and showed confidence early on.
The visitors started by intercepting the first pass of the match and then proceeded to secure the first three goals. However, Pulse remained in touch and, following a string of goals from their experienced goal shooter Shantal Slater, led 13-12 at the first pause.
The home side continued to grow into the fixture with Slater again proving a useful outlet for their attack. Meanwhile, Stars struggled to find consistency in front of the net, despite creating a few scoring opportunities.
Just before half-time Stars' Iona Darroch showed signs of the fightback that was to come with a well-timed interception. It briefly halted Pulse's momentum but Darroch and the visiting outfit found themselves 28-25 behind at the half-time.
"Sam gave us a bit of an inspirational quote at half-time. She’s a great coach and we didn’t want to disappoint her or each other. We’ve got big confidence. We had a good game against Wasps and that’s two we’ve had on the trot now.”
Despite Bird's words ringing in their ears, the opening exchanges of the third quarter remained tight before Stars were spurred on by a change to their attacking end.
Centre Lucy Harris, who had worked tirelessly, swapped with wing attack Darroch and her feeding of Rowe helped to level the scores at 30-30.
Goal keeper, Sam Cook also grew into the game during the third as she gave Pulse's Slater a tough time and duly nullified the shooter's impact on the match.
Rowe and Maryka Holtzhausen upped the tempo in Stars' shooting circle and with seven minutes to go the visitors went ahead for the first time since the opening exchanges, 33-22. Stars went on to finish three-quarter time 45-38 in front.
In the final 15 minutes both teams kept the scoreboard ticking but Bird's side stayed composed to pull away for a nine-goal victory. Stars will now prepare to face Lightning in Round 11 at the University of Worcester Arena, on March 23.
Watch live Vitality Netball Superleague when Celtic Dragons host London Pulse on Monday, March 25 live on Sky Sports Mix & Action from 6.45pm. Also, Sky Sports will be showing every game of the 2019 Vitality Netball World Cup in July.
