Steel disposed of swiftly - June 22, 2010
Ascot Park Hotel Southern Steel 38, NSW Swifts 55
By Kate Buchanan

You won’t hear any excuses emerging from the Ascot Park Hotel Southern Steel after they were outclassed 38-55 by the NSW Swifts in Sydney last night.

“Definitely not,” captain Megan Dehn said. “Everyone is really disappointed and we’re looking forward to making amends next week.”

With their playoffs berth tucked safely in the back pocket courtesy of the Fever toppling the Firebirds on Sunday, the Steel ventured across the Tasman intent on squashing the hoodoo of never winning on Aussie soil to secure third on the points table and the luxury of a home semi-final.

But they struck a major hurdle in the form of a Swifts unit determined to etch their own names in history as the first team to complete the round-robin phase of the ANZ Championship unscathed.

“We knew we were safe but we wanted to keep the intensity up because we wanted to get that home semi-final if possible so we were all up for the game – but it just didn’t happen tonight,” Dehn said.

“We were under lots of pressure right from the start and managed to kind of keep it together up until halftime but all that pressure took its toll.

“I watched a few of the Swifts’ games over the last few weeks and that’s what has happened to all the teams – they’ve stuck with them for a while and then they’ll just put seven goals on in a row and that just breaks it.

“They’re (Swifts) a good side like that – they absorb pressure and then pile it on themselves.”

And it was intense from the opening shrill of the whistle. After nailing their first shot, the Southerners took an agonising six minutes to add a second goal to their tally as uncharacteristic mistakes created a plethora of loose ball.

In a quarter marred by turnovers, the Swifts swooped on any possession coughed up to rack up a healthy 15-9 buffer.

To the credit of shooters Daneka Wipiiti and Dehn, Steel boosted a 100 percent strike rate and continued their impressive form in the second spell, missing just one – but the quantity of ball proved a constant dilemma.

The Steel stormed back into contention early with five unanswered goals to narrow the gap to just two, but it simply ignited the Swifts who raced like a freight train down the middle of the court to blow their advantage out to eight.

A late surge enabled the Steel to claw it back to a more respectable 23-27 deficit at halftime, but life was to get even tougher with the Swifts upping the ante and limiting the Steel to just six goals in the third quarter.

Trailing 29-40 heading into the final stanza, the Steel were on the receiving end of an uncontainable Swifts team whose tight marking was instrumental in the Steel’s demise.

Congestion on the transverse line stifled the Steel’s attack and was frustratingly difficult to penetrate at times.

The aptly-named Rebecca Bulley and her partner in crime Sonia Mkoloma proved a constant nuisance and relished the chance to snatch rebounds – a luxury they were denied in the first half.

A total of 20 deflections reflected the full-court defensive pressure unleashed by the Swifts, with attackers Kimberlee Green and Courtney Tairi getting in on the action with five and three respectively.

The Swifts 10 intercepts to Steel’s meager two was another telling statistic, but arguably an unfair reflection of the tenacious defensive effort of Steel duo Leana de Bruin and Te Huinga Reo Selby-Rickit.

Ultimately, the Steel were yet another scalp claimed by the Swifts in commanding fashion.

“We got caught a bit flat-footed and it wasn’t our best game,” Dehn said. “It’s hard to say what went wrong. We had a few turnovers early in the game that put us on the back foot, but having said that I think it was just their full court pressure and they didn’t make too many errors and they turned it over real fast and their shooters got their goals in – they were really complete tonight and it was hard to stop them in any way.”

Vice-captain Wendy Frew agreed.
 
“We were down 5-1 so certainly didn’t help but it’s hard to pinpoint a certain area. At the end of the day they played a good game, they had a good game plan and we didn’t stick to ours as much and do everything we said we were going to do against them,” she said.

“Obviously we knew it was going to be hard – we haven’t won in Aussie and they’re the unbeaten side so everything was in their favour but we certainly knew that we could play well against them.

“We felt if we put it together we were good enough to compete with them – at times we showed we were right up there and then at other times we just let ourselves down with personal errors or not quite adapting to the way the game’s played over here and that cost us in the end.

“We need to look at ourselves and obviously we’re all very disappointed, including myself big time, but in a way it could be a good wake-up call for us and we won’t let it happen again next week.”

Swifts wing defence Kimberley Smith said their recent focus on defensive had paid dividends.

“We’re working really hard on our one-on-one – the Steel are really patient and play a really short game so Julie (Fitzgerald) wanted us to contest those short passes … I think it worked well for us tonight,” she said.

Her constant battle with Barrett-Chase proved tough but crucial to executing the Swifts game plan.

“She seems to get every single ball down there so it was important to shut her down,” Smith said.

Completing the opening rounds without a blip gives the Swifts a valuable psychological advantage heading into Sunday’s major semi-final clash.

“It’s been hard because I guess we’ve known we’ve had a home semi for a while and knew it was against the Thunderbirds but we wanted to focus game-by-game so now we’re really looking forward to it,” Smith said.

Shooting statistics:

Ascot Park Hotel Southern Steel
Daneka Wipiiti 19/24 (79%)
Megan Dehn 13/14 (93%)
Juliana Naoupu 6/7 (86%)

NSW Swifts
Catherine Cox 28/37 (76%)
Susan Pratley 27/32 (84%)