At London’s Copperbox Arena, New Zealand defeated England 61-58 despite an impressive defensive performance from Vitality Roses on head coach Jess Thirlby’s birthday.
The first match of this three-Test series was England’s first since February, while New Zealand have played nine in two months, and they have clearly gained important experience heading into this weekend.
However, this scoreline underestimates the performance of the home side, who impressed both defensively and offensively in a game that actually consisted of only small mistakes.
“It’s tough. If you look at the numbers, you can see that we did a better job than usual with center passes to the goal,” Thirlby said.
“And Helen[Husby]was great coming forward in the post, but it wasn’t pretty at times.
“We expected it to be tough, but we just couldn’t finish the quarter and it was just a split second.
“So I don’t think we need to overreact tomorrow. Of course it hurts and we’re here to win, but the margins were slim and it was a moment where we needed to be smart and take some responsibility for being sloppy.”
“I think we were able to avoid the offside on the center pass, the penalty pass and the shooter’s shot when we were given a shot.
“I think the girls know these things and they’re already saying it’s just going to cost them and it certainly cost them the win tonight, but tomorrow is another day and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”
Funmi Fadoju impressed against the tall New Zealand team, flying through the air and grabbing multiple interceptions
Both teams gave up the ball 15 times throughout the game, but the Silver Ferns were able to get the ball to their shooters and score.
One of the first turnovers of the game came from Jazz Brown, who was making his debut as a goaltender. She played the majority of the game until being replaced by Razia Kouashi in the fourth quarter.
Brown really shined throughout the match alongside the flying Funmi Fadoju and posed a big challenge to New Zealand goal shooter Grace Nweke, who stands at 6ft 3in despite being six inches shorter.
On the other side of the court, Housby and Liv Chiene proved to be a formidable duo, building on their mutual trust as time went on, taking shots at goal from further and further away.
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Tamsin Greenway talks about New Zealand’s coaching drama and England’s confidence following last year’s victory, which set the stage for this weekend’s competitive Roses vs. Silver Ferns Test series
New Zealand head coach Yvette McCausland-Dury said: “I think we had chances to settle things sooner and we had more balls, but the England defense really put pressure on us in terms of where to put those chances.”
“I really wanted to play a little more flat, but I thought Grace put the ball in really well today. She’s really solid.
“And defensively, I thought it was a really high-quality game from both teams because they worked hard to disrupt the spaces in the closing stages.
“For us, it’s really (we need to work on) finesse, that last part, organization around the first and second phase of the center pass, and just being really calm when we get the ball in our hands.”
The teams will meet again tomorrow in the second leg of the series, which will be broadcast live on Sky Sports Mix with Forward Center Pass from 3pm, before traveling to Manchester for the final match on Wednesday.
