Netball World Cup: England face Wales in must-win home nations battle
Wednesday 12 August 2015 07:26, UK
A first loss of the tournament at the hands of Australia has left the England Roses facing a must-win encounter with Wales on Wednesday morning, live on Sky Sports.
The Dragons' hard-fought victory over 2015 World Cup surprise package Uganda has seen them qualify for the First Eight stage of the competition and set up this crucial clash.
Wales topped Pool D with victories over Fiji, Zambia and the She Cranes. This has guaranteed them a top-eight finish at the 2015 tournament, although their round-robin stage started with a 68-40 loss to South Africa.
It is a sharp step up in class for Wales and in the Roses, they face a side that defeated them 69-32 at the Netball Europe Open earlier in the year.
England will be keen to bounce back from Tuesday's defeat and mid-courter Serena Guthrie is pleased the opportunity comes around quickly.
She said: "I think the beauty of this format is that you get to meet a top two team and get a check in before you get to the business end of the competition.
"I think 10 goals was the difference today because we threw too much ball away the good thing is that’s an easy fix moving forward."
Although seen as outsiders, Guthrie knows that Wales will pose a threat, adding: "They’ve had a successful competition so far as well and they will be feeling pretty good about themselves.
"We will have a look at the video tonight and I think we just need to look at ourselves for tomorrow and fix what we want to do and play our own way."
England's match with Wales will be shown live exclusively on Sky Sports 4 from 7:15am on Wednesday. Non-subscribers can also see matches without a contract through online streaming service NOW TV.
