NSW Swifts star Paige Hadley insists her team has the ability to upstage powerhouse opponents over the next fortnight, despite another loss which has them languishing near the foot of the Super Netball ladder.
The Swifts must put behind them the frustration of blowing a six-goal lead over local rivals and competition front-runners Giants Netball - as well as a one-goal defeat to Collingwood the previous round before they take on second-placed Sunshine Coast Lightning and third-placed Melbourne Vixens in the next two encounters.
"Anything's possible. And we haven't lost faith," Hadley declared after a defiant Swifts fell 59-56 at Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre on Saturday night.
"We know we're going to be the team to upset other teams and we know that everyone that comes up against us is going to be nervous. We want to get wins on the board and we want to show that all the hard work we're doing is for something.
"If you look at the scoreboard, you'd think that we haven't played well, but we have. We've got big games, but we know we can beat them. It's just a matter of putting out the performance."
Hadley was player of the match against the Giants, but her teammates didn't have the legs to match it with their seasoned opponents, who scored their first win without captain Kim Green, who was ruled out for the season with a knee injury.
"That's why they're top of the table," Hadley said.
"They've got players that have been playing together for years, players with 100 Test caps to their name. We're inexperienced, but we're growing, getting more experience and more hungry for a win."
"We should have won that today. We shied away when the pressure was put on. Every game is a hard game. Nearly every team is ahead of us now and we're just going as hard as we can.
"Every single team we've played we've contested right to the end.
"I don't think any team thinks they'll get an easy game against us. They know we've got big hearts, we fight right to the end and we're going in the right direction and the results will come."
Coach Rob Wright said the team can gain a lot from this tough trio of games.
"The three top teams three weeks in a row - that's good," he said.
"It means you have to be up and ready to play, not only for the whole game quarter by quarter but, for us, patches within that.
"This league shows that you can have a five or six minute lapse and the game can get done. They're the ones where we've got to keep building."
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