Mavericks Co-operative Netball Superleague Champions!

Saturday 5th April 2008
Won 43 - 39

What a roller coaster of a match! Loughborough must be wondering how they lost it; for the first half of the game Mavericks was struggling to get into second gear as Loughborough’s mid court swarmed the centre third. Mavericks continued to turnover the ball at an extraordinary rate but could not find a way into the attacking third. The score line of 6-9 after 15 minutes indicated it was a nervous start by both teams.

At the quarter break Ann Marie Muller came onto the court at WA and Karen Atkinson moved to the centre spot this enabled a little more flow with Monique Wood coping with the tight marking and trying to find a space to dodge. By this time Loughborough were getting into their stride and former Mavericks player Jo Harten was showing a lot of flair and drive and the goal margin was widening. Loughborough took an injury time with five minutes to go before the half time break and Maggie Jackson took the opportunity to put Michelle Hall on at Goal Attack; the change of pace seemed to make a difference and the half time score reduced to 14-21.

An uphill struggle but with the amount of ball Mavericks was having it seemed possible. With the same players but as a different mind set appeared for the second half, Mavericks was suddenly 8-1 up in the third quarter; score line levelled and a match was on; the straight line ball and easy feeds by Karen Atkinson and Ann Marie Muller into Louisa Brownfield was key. Loughborough continued to juggle their shooting line up throughout the third quarter as Naomi Siddall and Amanda Newton tightened their defending and put a lot of pressure on both shooters. Siddall picked up numerous loose balls created by Elsley, Atkinson and Newton . However, in the last minute of the quarter two late errors by Mavericks enabled Loughborough to go back into the lead at three quarter time 28-31.

Debbie Jones returned to the court for the fourth quarter in place of Muller and this was effective as she had observed from the bench where the spaces were; with early feeds by the mid court and great drives through the court by Clare Elsely and Amanda Newton it was back to level scoring again. A great turnover under the post by Amanda Newton brought the crowd alive and started the momentum to see Mavericks in the lead for the first time… with three minutes to go and six goals ahead, a win was in sight. However as the coaches for Mavericks knew, Loughborough would never lie down and again they forced the errors to bring the score line within two; was there to be another extra time as there has been in previous years of play offs between these two sides? A penalty to Karen Atkinson in the last minute and a goal by Louisa Brownfield created a gap that was definitely too big to claw back.

Three years in the final and at last the win. This was a typical final that saw nervous errors by both teams but a great match for the sell out crowd in the K2 arena in Crawley .

Photographs by Mavericks Official Photographer Kevin Jones who regularly has his photos on
the England Netball website as well as other sporting sites. Photo's available to purchase!
Email: Kevin Jones or go to www.netstarphotos.co.uk