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The Queensland Firebirds player Laura Geitz poses with their trophy following their win in the ANZ Netball championship final between the Northern Mystics from New Zealand and the Queensland Firebirds at Convention Centre in Brisbane, Sunday, May 22, 2011. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
The Queensland Firebirds took out the ANZ Championship grand final last night with the help of an explosive third quarter, beating the Northern Mystics 57-44.
The Firebirds became the first team in the ANZ Championship to accomplish a perfect season by remaining unbeaten all year. Their 13-goal grand final winning margin saw them win the ANZ Championship in its fourth year of competition.
Stand-in captain Laura Geitz was proud: “We’ve gone through and done something that no other team’s done and we’ll celebrate that… it’s a huge achievement,” Geitz said.
Both the Firebirds and the Mystics came into the grand final having never played in a final series, but the lack of finals’ experience was far from missing from the first whistle.
Despite the efforts and turnover created by Laura Geitz in the first quarter, the Mystics contested every ball to keep the New Zealanders in the match. Scores were locked at 12-12 each at the first break, with the second quarter telling a similar story, as Firebirds’ GA Natalie Medhurst predicted.
“I think you’re always going to expect it to be close for the first and second quarters, they made mistakes and so did we and you expect that when you put two quality sides together,” Medhurst said.
Medhurst was smart to respect her opposition as she worked tirelessly with her fellow attack line in Chelsea Pitman (WA) and Elissa Macleod (c) to hurl fantastic feeds into the reliable hands and shot of Romelda Aiken, who in the end, was named player of the match. No wonder.
The Mystics did take the lead momentarily in the second term by two goals, but their lead was short-lived when the Firebirds closed the margin and capitalised turnover ball to enter the third quarter two goals ahead 26-24.
But the game was won in a crucial moment in the third quarter, which was according to Mystics coach, Debbie Fuller “going into the third minute of the third quarter”. Fuller admitted this to be the turning point of the match, being when time was called to re-jig her defensive line in an attempt to manage her goal defense Kayla Cullen’s cramping calf muscle.
“We didn’t know whether to take her off and put her back on in the fourth (quarter) or to leave her on and get as much as we could from her,” said Fuller.
“Credit to them, they took full advantage of us… They got a few turnovers, we made a few errors and that’s all it comes down to,” Fuller said.
While changes to the Mystics line up unsettled the side, half-time changes made by Firebirds’ coach Roselee Jencke were spot on.
Jencke moved wing defence Keirra Tromf to the bench, moving Clare McMeniman from goal defence to the wing and bringing on Amy Steel to goal defence to lift the home-team’s intensity.
The third-quarter romp lasted 5-6 minutes before the Mystics were able to readjust. But it was too late, the Firebirds shot ahead by 7 goals in the blink of an eye. It was Medhurst that led the charge to take full advantage of the disrupted Mystics combination.
“I think we were only up by 3 goals when Kayla called that time and they did re-jig it (the Mystics line-up) but I think it was great because it opened up Romelda [Aiken] a lot more and she was a lot easier to spot up against [Rachel] Rasmussen. That made it a lot easier in our feeds,” Medhurst said.
Medhurst and Aiken were all class as they helped steam-roll the home side to a 12-goal lead at three-quarter time, 44-33. And captain Geitz was impressed: “We’re a team that’s capable of scoring quickly and the way that Nat and the girls fed Romelda tonight was just amazing to watch,” Geitz said.
“I think we all agree that the 3rd quarter is the championship quarter and that’s when you really need to get out there and push it out and everybody stood up”.
“We really ran away with it in the 3rd quarter and put ourselves in a position going into that last quarter,” Geitz said.
Could the Mystics salvage the 12-goal deficit in the final quarter?
“We needed to believe that we could run down a 10 goal lead and that was wavering going into that fourth quarter,” Fuller said.