Resident writer and former Kelpies captain Heath Brown continues to coach from the back seat after the first batch of rounds have passed.
This week he turns his attention to the Lightning, Swifts, Firebirds and Giants and their areas of strength, as well as the potential threads other teams can pull if they’re to expose them for the remainder of the season!
SUNSHINE COAST LIGHTNING
There are some other teams on the underperforming section of the ladder for whom you can put their struggles down to list problems – the just don’t have the right talent stocks. Lightning don’t have a list problem – they have a combination problem causing an over-rotation where no one is really quite sure of what their best lineup is. You get the feeling the weight of having Diamonds players at both ends of the court plays on the minds of coaching staff, not wanting to dent their players’ international chances.
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This team looks at its best when they play more sections of the game in surge mode, but struggles when they are stuck in ‘staples netball’, trying not to make mistakes. This risk averse frontline gets sticky hands. Their defence overworks contests instead of opening spaces to hunt. Get the Donnell roar happening, the middies line-breaking and the defence scheming plays ahead, rather than a play behind.
NSW SWIFTS
The Sydneysiders have a unique form problem not too many other teams face – a current change in game style that doesn’t suit their legacy ways of winning as a club. The red dress girls are usually known for a short game played with speed, similar to how the Vixens and Tbirds play. But they’ve crept into a Fever-like ‘piff’ netball – a long game we’ve rarely seen in Swifts history. If I had a dollar for every “look in” catch cry audible during broadcast…it was no surprise players got used to skipping phases of play to find Nweke. But in the process of doing so, they’ve lost the Swifts trademark and it throws everyone out of rhythm.
The backline has been running through the motions and has struggled to hit top gear. All formidable athletes in their own right, but the combinations look tired, particularly while Sarah Klau has been unavailable. Rore gives them more spunk, but as a replacement player they need to find a winning combo without her. More of Lambden in GD please!
I feel like this team needs Simone to take them to the pub to jump start their season! Worked for Vixens last year when things looked bleak, and this side has the list to wake from their sleep and go back to the Swifts’ way if they’re to fight for another premiership.
QUEENSLAND FIREBIRDS
You get the feeling this team is headed back to their heyday after far too long as cellar dwellers. They had been a hot mess off court, with player revolts, coach sackings and administrator fallouts. But coach Wills is the upper they needed to start the climb back.
Their best form ironically came without their Kiwi recruits, and there’s something in a successful Firebirds side that needs Queensland blood running through their veins. I’d love to see Shearer, Bakewell-Doran and Jackson rotated more so the former becomes the next Geitzy. The defence and midcourt have the firepower – the shooting line isn’t quite top four. This is where they need list changes next year to be a top contender. With nothing to lose, I’d be blooding Sandholt when I can, and working out a way to get Gretel back from overseas so the purple dress is back in Queenslander hands.
GIANTS
There are list problems all over the court for Giants, as the club struggles to deal with the loss of its two figureheads in Price and Harten in one season and didn’t fair as well as others on the recruitment drive. The list management problems feel like the same ones that plagued the Collingwood franchise – good enough individuals but mismatched in combinations compared to their opponents.
They feel like the Richmond Tigers of SSN – on a rebuild but with pressure mounting every week to get better results, which would be suffocating the mindset of this side. They’ve already shown this season against Thunderbirds that any team that has an off week or underestimates this side will have their work cut out for them to shake the Giants, but they need a circuit breaker to give them a reprieve from the pressure of mounting losses.
