As the only team with a traditional ‘birds’ nickname left standing, can the Thunderbirds be beaten this finals series after a near flawless run into the post-season?
Heath Brown dives in on each team’s chances of toppling the ladder leaders, should they get the opportunity during the finals.
BEATING ADELAIDE
The answer to beating them may lie within rounds four to eight, where they were beatable – only defeating Mavs by seven, Giants by two and Lightning by one – while also suffering their only defeat to Vixens by six. The rounds before and after were absolute spankings dealt out to all comers.
There would be a bevy of performance analysts watching those tapes to find the pattern in the Thunderbirds coming unstuck for repeat quarters. And this is what the other three teams have to hone in on strategically and mentally to get their playing group believing that they can rain on the Thunderbirds’ parade.
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The vulnerable spot I’d hit?
Take Van Der Berg away from rhythm with regular double teams, and hope that ball-deprivation on a momentum player will likely heed more mistakes out of the Thunderbirds despite letting Frew have a free run for repeat sequences. Van Der Berg’s best games are when she’s the target almost every goal, and denying her this intermittently will mess with the rhythm and systems of a side that is used to threading the ball to her at post at will.
AFL defensive systems will often float a second or spare player against a dominant forward, prepared to wear the fact this leaves them undermanned elsewhere. Although much easier in football with more players at your disposal, some time spent in this mode against the world’s newest shooting sensation and forcing ball through less prolific scorers may change the game.
VIXENS?
Let’s hope they take a leaf from Simone’s book and head to the pub to break the shackles of a form slide. They’ve inflicted the only defeat on the Thunderbirds (and fairly comfortably) less than two months ago. The Victorians know how to stretch the court to create attacking space and this will be key on Sunday.
The Thunderbirds play most of their time in offline structures and crowding spaces ahead of the ball. The only way through it or around it is adding extra depth when they are in this mode. I would be training to put a lot of ball through the backline in short court, asking the frontline to set up non standard centre pass starting points – including an overuse off wide starts and offline starts. More space is their friend and can expose a flat footed space marker if it’s coming at pace and with depth.
Oh, and leave Rudi Ellis on. She is being pulled off court for small patches of play and she’s very much a ‘more minutes equals more ball’ player. They barely took the bib off her on the road to glory last year – it might be time to show the same faith.
FEVER?
Haven’t faired well against the TBirds with a 36-goal deficit across their two matches. It will be hard to flip this, but I would deploy the tactic Giamts used to almost beat the Birds from the bottom of the ladder. Use your two-point firepower by briefing both shooters to put up high volume two-pointers in all Supershot periods to try and get the Birds in chase mode. They love expanding a lead but don’t fair so well chasing a deficit or blowing out a tight match.
MAVS?
This is the team that have the players that match up best against Adelaide. Their defensive trio are the best backline ball getters in a one on one structure in the whole of SSN – their physicality at every ball will ruffle the feathers of an Adelaide side that wants to run the ball at will. At the other end – Shimona is a bigger body than Shamera, and her bulk and muscle when the ball is placed in her strike zone can beat the floating but occasionally flimsy Jamaican backline. Big body power onto ball can beat their swooping defence, and this could be Shimona’s time to show netball fans that she is the new queen of the Jamaican shooting ranks.
THE LIKELIHOOD?
Playing off against all of those tactics are the master tacticians and brains trust of the competition’s best coaches – Obst and Fellows. There is no better defensive specialist coach in the comp than Fellows, and no better overall coach than Obst. Teams don’t spend half a season dismantling the game of formidable opponents and inflicting thrashings without exceptional gameplans and in-game moves. This team has been prepared to be premiers from Round 1 and it will likely take an opponent’s best day and a Thunderbirds off day for the trophy not to return to Adelaide.
