The teams are running out on court now, the Diamonds looking relaxed and confident. Erin has noted that now the game is about to begin, the crowd is now getting behind the Proteas! Interesting times, let’s go!
Big incentive for the Proteas with 1,000,000 ZAR on offer for each player if they come away with the gold medal. So they will want to give themselves every chance to do that by winning tonight and reaching their first world cup final since 1995.
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Hearing from Norma Plummer now.
“They don’t look as nervous as I thought they might. I think they’ll just come out and give it a really good go.”
She also reassures us that Bongiwe Msomi is 100% fit after her ankle injury against the Roses, which is great to hear.
I’m pretty happy with this broadcast line up, which includes my two favourite netballers of all time – Nat Medhurst and Sharelle McMahon. They will provide some excellent insights.
Medhurst feels that South Africa may take offence at Alexander completely changing up her line up from what she clearly considered her top 7 in the Ferns game, so it will be interested to see if the Proteas come out fired up.
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Alvin and the Chipmunks is finally over so it appears we will get some TV coverage started soon. I’m very glad this important eight year old movie got to run its course before the small matter of a World Cup semi final gets to be covered.
Some thoughts from Erin inside the stadium:
“Awesome to see so many Diamonds fans in the house. I swear I see a few red shirts cheering for Diamonds as they come out too. I reckon the Poms want an Eng v Aus final.”
Interesting as they seemed to be on the Diamonds’ side against the Ferns too. If the Diamonds do progress tonight I hope they’ve enjoyed this crowd support while it lasted though, because they will turn on them big time tomorrow!
Some interesting thoughts on social media regarding Lisa Alexander’s starting line. Quite a few people thinking it’s giving the benchies a run because they expect to win and win easily. Good summary of what it could be from former Roses player Pamela Cookey.
And of course after this game we have the other semi final – between England and New Zealand. England cruised to victory against SA and will be going in pretty confidently. Gone are the days when the Ferns could easily account for the Roses. Although the English team don’t play against many of the Ferns these day, a fair few of this crop of Roses played in the ANZ Championship days and the players will all be pretty familiar with each other.
We’re still about 30 mins away from the first centre pass, so now is a good time to catch up on the news from the past few days. Emma John was all over the England v South Africa game a couple of days ago, so check it out to get up to speed if you couldn’t quite wake up at 5am to watch it.
Starting line up – South Africa
No surprises here, this has looked like their strongest line up, though I’ll be looking for for a GA change if Holtzhausen struggles again.
GS Lenize Potgieter
GA Maryka Holtzhausen
WA Bongiwe Msomi
C Erin Burger
WD Shadine van der Merwe
GD Karla Pretorius
GK Phumza Maweni
Starting line up – Australia
This is a very different line up that started against NZ. I’m not sure if Lisa Alexander is hoping for something different or is perhaps taking this match up a little lightly?
GS Caitlin Thwaites
GA Gretel Tippett
WA Liz Watson
C Paige Hadley
WD Jamie-Lee Price
GD Jo Weston
GK Sarah Klau
Preamble
The Diamonds would appear to be in the box seat for this one – despite a scrappy second half against New Zealand where they only came away with the win by one goal – they have looked the more in form of the two teams.
South Africa had a strong start to the World Cup but perhaps played their final against Jamaica, when they beat the world number two to qualify for the semi finals. They looked less than convincing against England. Maryka Holtzhausen appeared out of her depth in goal attack, while the usually unstoppable defence combination could not contain who our intrepid reporter in Liverpool Erin Delahunty has dubbed ‘H2’ – Jo Harten and Helen Housby. However a Norma Plummer-coached team is not to be underestimated and ‘The Plum’ will be very keen to take down the Diamonds, so she’ll have a few tricks up her sleeve.
So much excitement, so little time! So let’s get into it.
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