It was a stella effort by the Cougars last night at Aberdeen.
Fear set in early Monday, when I realised we would go into this match short of players. A number of calls made to try and get girls to play up was unsuccessful, claiming their teams were struggling for numbers too.
Thus, 6 Determined Cougars rocked up to Aberdeen in high spirits, although some a little sick and jetlagged, we thought a lost would be better than a forfeit at this late stage. To our surprise we found that the Aussie Great White Sharks were taking the court with 5 players. The odds to win now seemed a little on our side... until ... another of their players arrived to take the court some 4 minutes into play and finally the 7th player arrived at 8 minutes into the first quarter.
Although the Aussies had now fielded a full squad, the Cougars (GK - Ailsa, GD - Cara, C - Tiph, WA - Erin, GA - Helen, GS - Penny) were applying the pressure and defending well, Aussies became flustered and forgot to pass to their two open players on a number of occasions, allowing us just to concentrate on our own players. Erin and Tiph played a sensational centre court combination, looking at them run around and break hard against always having two players stacked on them, made me even more tired. Penny and Helen were sinking the shots and we were winning coming into the 10th minute of the game, when Penny went down in some nasty contact with their keeper. Unfortunately, Penny came off second best and sustained an ankle injury, she had to leave the court. Although, Cougars were now down to 5 players, our heads were not, and we were ready to continue our lead into half time.
With some changes in positions, the remainder of the game was played as follows: GK - Ailsa, GD - Erin, C - Tiph, GA - Helen, GS - Cara.
Cougars stepped up to the mark and we played the game of our lives, every Cougar pulled out the best they had in them and served it up to the Aussie Great White Sharks. The Aussie's were just waiting for us to crumble. Yet we showed them we had it all, great defence with Ailsa and Erin, grabbing rebounds and intercepts all night in the circle (complements to Erin on a great job in GD, having not played it before), awesome breaking into the centre, and some terrific passing into the shooting circle by Tiph and Helen to allow Cara and Helen to get those shots in and come away with a well deserved WIN! One that is so much sweeter when you are playing 5 against 7.
Great game girls, I don't think we have sweated that much over a game of netball! A terrific display of teamwork and those on the sidelines were impressed we held it together.