Netball World Cup Day 9: Unleash the Sharni

At last, we’re down to business, with Day 9 arriving and the eagerly awaited semi-finals on the agenda.

First up (in the games that counted) was New Zealand versus England. Coming into the tournament, many netball experts were predicting that New Zealand would struggle to even win bronze at this tournament and that England were pushing for the title.

With the Kiwi victory over Australia on Day 3, some tunes were very slightly adjusted, very carefully, in the hope that no one would notice. However the close game against Malawi proved the Ferns are vulnerable and no one really knew what to expect of today’s game.

Who knows how it would have gone had it not been for some unsuspecting ball girl, who happened to say within earshot of Kayla Cullen that she didn’t like the Ferns’ lip syncing competition entry. That was enough to activate Cullen’s ‘offence mechanism’ and she was ready for the game.

It was a game of two halves – in that there were two halves to the game – and both of these halves were dominated by the Silver Ferns. While England opted for the ‘get really close and collapse at the last minute’ strategy at last year’s Commonwealth Games, it seems this year they preferred to go with ‘never really be in the game, but stay kind of in touch and lose by 10ish’, which is an equally funny strategy, so whatever works for them.

The Ferns supporters were out to make it feel like a home game for their team, which they were quite successful in doing, as the Australians in the crowd struggled to decide who they wanted to lose more. On the one hand, there was the Ashes. On the other, the Bledisloe. Due to their indecisiveness, the ‘Silver Fans’, as they’re known, were able to run away with the cheering.

Despite the best efforts of the English defence line, the shooters could not get past the Kiwi defenders, with neither goal attack used was able to make an impact. Goal shooter Jo Harten used all her focus on remembering not to pass to her Magic teammates Casey Kopua and Leana de Bruin.

Maria Tutaia had her bionic arm fully charged after a rest day, knocking in a lazy 35 goals like she wasn’t even trying. Hopefully her dastardly secret is discovered before the final and the umpires think to check under that ‘compression sleeve’, or it will be quite embarrassing for her to get away with it and still lose.

New Zealand finally stopped poking the dying cockroach with a stick and finished them off – defeating the English Roses 50-39 and reasserting the southern hemisphere dominance.

Next up was Australia’s turn to show those northern hemisphere punks which way is the proper way for water to run down a drain. The Diamonds chose to do this by playing against Jamaica in a game of netball and to be honest, I think the message got a little lost here.

Much to the disgust of the New South Wales Swifts fans who don’t know any players who aren’t in the Swifts, there were only two Swifts players on court to start this game. These disgruntled fans couldn’t understand where all these other players came from and what they were doing on court.

However, it was not just the Swifts fans, but also the Sharni Army (whose influence spreads far and wide beyond petty club loyalties) that were up in arms, as Layton the Great’un was starting on the bench.

It was like watching a tiger stuck in a shoe box and at some point was more entertaining than the game out on court. The highlight came when wing attack Kim Green went down injured and Layton immediately began warming up screaming “Just give me a bib, I don’t care which one it is!”.

Unfortunately the coach didn’t submit to her will and Green played on, but there can be no doubt that Layton would have put in one of the more memorable performances of the tournament had she been allowed to give wing attack a crack.

Jamaica looked a little worse for wear from their hard-fought match against Malawi the day before. The Diamonds controlled the game from start to finish, with goal shooter Caitlin Bassett fully recovered from her cupcake hypnosis episode and back to just shooting lots of goals. Her magical pixie goal attack buddy Natalie Medhurst weaved magic all over the court and was busy just generally being the second greatest human who ever lived (after Sharelle McMahon, naturally).

At the other end of the court, Captain Courageous Laura Geitz was terrorising her good friend Romelda Aiken, for no other reason than to win a netball game and progress to the final of the World Cup, which seems like a strange thing to jeopardise a friendship over. Her partner in crime Julie Corletto must have needed a couple of thousand extra steps on her FitBit for the day, as she never once stopped moving – Medhurst was forced to use her pixie magic to ensure Corletto at least kept a landed foot on the ground when she caught the ball to avoid stepping calls.

And then… it happened. In the final break, Geitz relinquished the royal ‘GK’ patches and bequeathed them to Layton to finish the game off. A brief hush fell over stadium, and then a chant built up “Sharni, Sharni, Sharni!”. It was clear we were in the presence of greatness, even the Jamaicans and the Silver Fans felt it.

Back on court it was clear that nobody has ever wanted anything as much as Sharni Layton wanted to get that ball in her hands. She wanted it more than Shane Watson wanted to not be out LBW ever again. More than the Wallabies want Eden Park demolished and never spoken of again. More even than Paul Gallen wants to punch someone in a State of Origin game.

With that determination, she grew an extra 10 centimetres, so Jamaica were forced to bring on an even taller shooter, to no avail. The game was gone, Layton would not have it any other way. The Diamonds – not to be outdone by New Zealand – also opted for an 11-goal win, taking it out 67-56.

And so, to tomorrow and the thought that maybe we could have avoided this whole big kerfuffle and just invited the Kiwis over for a BBQ and to play a game in our fancy stadium. It certainly would have been a quicker way to get to this inevitability.

The Diamonds will spend the time leading up to their 3:20pm final resting, recovering and sending really nice fruit platters to Kayla Cullen, in the hope of ensuring she is the most unoffended she could possibly be. It’s going to be a big day – bring it on!