“A coach’s dream” as Blue and Gold experience three different match situations at Springfree Super Fours
Team Bath Netball continued their preparations for the 2018 Vitality Netball Superleague season with three encouraging performances at the inaugural Springfree Super Fours tournament on Saturday.
The round-robin competition was hosted by Surrey Storm and also featured Scottish franchise UWS Sirens and Benecos Mavericks, who took the title after edging out Team Bath 42-39 in the final match of the day thanks to three goals in the last minute.
The Sitec-sponsored Blue and Gold had started the event with an impressive 47-30 victory over Sirens before getting the better of Storm in a ding-dong battle, Chelsea Lewis scoring the decisive goal in a 36-35 success.
Their narrow defeat to Mavericks, who won all of their games, meant Team Bath finished runners-up overall.
Team Bath Netball Head Coach Jess Thirlby said: “The tournament had everything and proved really valuable, it was a coach’s dream to be exposed to so many different game situations.
“We led from the start against Sirens and were 13-3 up after the first quarter, then we had a hard-fought game against Storm where we came from behind before closing out the win by just one goal.
“The last match against Mavericks was another highly competitive run-out. The teams were level pegging at both half-time and the end of the third quarter, rarely separated by more than one or two goals throughout.
“It’s not easy to achieve those situations in training as authentically as Saturday’s event delivered. More combinations also had longer to consolidate what they had learnt since our outing against Wales and overall Anna [Stembridge] and I were really excited by what we saw.
“Now its back to the training court as we continue to fine-tune ahead of our very own tri-tournament in the new year.”
That pre-season competition at the Team Bath Arena – taking place on Saturday, January 6 – will see the Blue and Gold take on 2017 Superleague champions Wasps and West Country rivals Severn Stars in one action-packed afternoon.
Doors open at 1pm and the first of the three matches starts at 2pm. Admission is priced £10 for adults, £5 concessions and £20 for a family ticket.
Click here to purchase tickets for the tri-tournament or any of Team Bath’s nine home Superleague fixtures during 2018 or call 0844 888 4412.
Team Bath Netball are sponsored by Sitec and supported by partners Mogers Drewett, Investigo and Netball South West. Centurion Chartered Financial Planners are supporting the team’s performance analysis capabilities, Viper 10 are their Sportswear Supplier and Skins provide the team with compression wear.
Thank you to Steve Porter and Surrey Storm for the fantastic pictures. Click here to watch footage of the matches on the Surrey Storm Facebook page.
