Preparing for round 3 of the ANZ Premiership, Te Kāea spoke to former Silver Fern, Courtney Tairi on her thoughts on the recent sin-binning of a player for repeated infringements.
Magic and Pulse are the first teams to battle it out in round 3.
“The Pulse have been really strong, and are definitely going to be the team to beat. They’ve had a great pre-season, they’re fitter and faster than the other teams [and] they've developed players.
"They have Dunn in there, she's only 18-19 years-old, she's the best shooter in the league at the moment- and then her partner Metuarau, so they've done really well with them to keep Ekanasio on the bench. She's a Silver Fern and for her not to get court time I think the Pulse has created something good there with them two,” says Tairi.
But Tairi still believes Ekanasio is a great player to come off the bench.
"She's a great player to have on your bench and when she did come on, she shot at almost 100% and she grew up in Australia so she knows what it's like to fight for a position, and this will not only make her stronger but the two younger ones as well," she says.
Another young player doing well is Te Paea Selby-Rickit, who will help her team once again against the Northern Mystics on Monday.
"Te Paea has been really strong for them, especially last night, so i think Harrison will try and ruin the game flow down there for them, and their attacking end knows them so well. But they don’t have Jhaniele Fowler Reid at the back anymore so the players are having to play the ball a lot more, they can’t just turn and throw it in. So the Mystics really need to get on top of that and attack the ball because they're not turning and throwing in the ball like the used to."
The Mystics won their last match which was against the Northern Stars. In that same match a controversial call was made.
“It's not what netball needs,” says Tairi, “And if you look at the Australian league it's not what they need over there, so why is it happening here? We want our players to contest the ball when you play teams like England and Australia that’s how they play so we shouldn’t be discouraging players.” says Tairi.
The Stars will play the Tactix next Wednesday