Australian netball coach Lisa Alexander has welcomed the prospect of more selection headaches, after the Diamonds beat New Zealand 58-42 to complete their first Constellation Cup sweep in four years.
The 16-point margin in Saturday's game in Sydney represented a massive 26-goal turnaround from New Zealand's 57-47 win in the Quad Series in Invercargill last month.
"We don't want to get over-excited about this, we're still building towards the Commonwealth Games, but it's a very positive thing." Alexander said.
.Australia trailed 5-0 and took more than three minutes to score their first goal, but rallied to pile on eight of the next nine goals, and the first six goals of the second quarter.
They outscored the Kiwis 14-9 in both middle quarters to lead 26-22 at halftime and 40-31 at the final change. They won the last quarter 18-11.
Goal defence Jo Weston improved her Commonwealth Games selection chances with an impressive performance, and Alexander cheerfully admitted the selectors were happy to have even more to ponder than they did after the Quad Series
"Thats a good thing, I don't mind having headaches," Alexander said.
She wasn't happy with the physicality of the Silver Ferns, especially towards her captain Caitlin Bassett, who she took off in the second quarter, and Liz Watson.
"I think the physicality was a little bit over the top to be honest," she said.
But Watson relished the attention she received.
"I knew it was going to be physical and I like the physicality of the game, it's something that I kind of thrive on," Watson said.
Caitlin Thwaites, who came on for Bassett in the second quarter made 30 of her 32 attempts, while Te Paea Selby Rickitt led the Silver Ferns' scorers with 24 out of 28.
New Zealand coach Janine Southby made numerous changes throughout the match.as she continued searching for the right connections.
"We've got a lot of work to do, we're really aware of that, but I don't want to take away from the fact the Australians played really well today," Southby said.
