Tuesday, 5 June 2012

The Royal Cougars move to fourth with impressive win against Woods Panthers


The Royal Cougars have moved to fourth on the Subway Cup ladder after defeating Woods Panthers 52-30 in a solid team performance on Saturday at Netball SA Stadium.

The win sees the Cougars move to fourth spot on the ladder moving above both Woods and Spring Gully Newton Jaguars as the race for the finals begins to heat up leading into the final round of matches.

While both sides were looking sharp early in the match, it was the Cougars who moved out to 3 goal lead after good defence from GK Tamsin Petzer and GD Paris Vince. From there the Cougars did not look back.

Through patience and precise ball movement in attack, and good movement from GA Joanne Nixon, the Cougars dominated most of the first quarter leading by 11 goals. But a strong finish with 3 goals in a row from Woods cut the lead to 8 at quarter time.

The second quarter was a much more even affair with Woods getting into the game and showing some of their recent good form. They could not break the Cougars composed attack and the lead remained at 8 goals midway through the quarter.

Although Woods shooters Emma Thomas and Kim Walker had a much better quarter, the Cougars still won it by 3 goals. The halftime lead was 11 goals to the Cougars, who did not look like slowing down.

Quick transitional play from the Cougars continued their momentum early in the third quarter as they started to take control of the match. C Leigh Waddington was excellent across the court and linked well with WD Ashton Hurn who was picking off bad Woods passes.

Woods could just not get anything to click during the match, scoring just 4 goals for most of the quarter. Some late possession enabled 3 late goals but by this stage the Cougars had moved out to a 16 goal lead at the final break.

Cougars’ shooters, Jess Roberts and Joanne Nixon, making things difficult with a 100% third quarter.

Woods started the final quarter well scoring a couple of goals but the Cougars were on fire and looking for a big win which they got by 22 goals. Waddington continued her strong performance and this showed late in the quarter.

While chasing a loose ball, Waddington and Woods GK Tara Gagliardi combined for a big collision that saw the Cougars C crash to the floor. Waddington received an accidental knock to the head as both players competed for the ball with intent.

Cougars coach Scott Waddington said that the whole side contributed across the court and that the structure was good.

“It was a good even contribution, we thought that we did exactly what we wanted to do structurally and defensively was very good.

“We’ve really focussed this year on improvement, every game we want to improve a little bit more from the game before.

“We get three rounds this year it gives us three cracks at every side, we’re back to round 1 against Contax, we’re hoping for a competitive effort with every team we come back to face leading up to finals.”

Injured Woods player Beth Shimmin said the match was tough to watch from the sideline and that the side is still confident that they regain form leading up to the finals.

“It was really tough to watch from the sidelines, I definitely wanted to be out there. Just when it’s not going your way, I guess it’s not going your way.

“We’ve managed to get the bye leading into final round, so we’ll definitely be working hard on a lot of things.

“I’m pretty confident coming into the last round that it will just fall into place.” Shimmin said.

In Friday night’s games ETSA Contax easily defeated Stellar Homes Garville 66-31 and the Health and Life Phoenix moved to third sport defeating Spring Gully Newton Jaguars 49-41, which moves the Jaguars to fifth spot on the ladder.


Quarter-by-quarter scores:

Q1:   Cougars  15 – 7  Panthers

Q2:   Cougars  29 – 18  Panthers

Q3:   Cougars  41 – 25  Panthers

Q4:   Cougars  52 – 30  Panthers


Match Shooting Statistics:


Cougars   52/60   86.67%

J. Roberts:   34/39   87.18%

J. Nixon:   14/17   82.35%

S. Carver:   4/4   100%


Panthers   30/46   65.22%

K. Walker:   13/16   81.25%

E. Thomas:   13/20   65%

K. Zanardo:   4/10   40%







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