By Elliot Corbel

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“IT’S almost baffling that we let that one slip away.”

Those were the passionate words of Evelyn Partners Jets coach Emily Green, after the long awaited return to Premiership netball saw the Jets let a ten point lead slip in the third quarter to settle for a draw in their opening clash on Saturday away against YMCA Magic.

Coach Emily Green

“A draw is so frustrating, no one plays to get a draw,” said Green post match. “I think what was most frustrating was it wasn’t a goal for goal game which just ended in a draw, the game was full of huge momentum shifts for both teams.

“One team would go on a five or six goal run, but then the other would answer back and the pendulum just kept swinging back and forth.

“When I was speaking to Serena [Kersten] before the game about tactics and picking her brain, she was clear to me that this was something that would happen, momentum shifts were going to come thick and fast at this level and she was absolutely right.

“She was clear that despite maybe being six or seven goals up, it’s not going to be as comfortable as it might have been in the regional leagues.”

The pace and competitiveness of play acted out in a tantalising see-saw of a match, however the Jets seemed to have wrestled the key momentum swing in the third quarter as they opened up a ten goal lead.

“Despite the changes that we tried to make, we couldn’t seem to keep a hold of that lead, which was frustrating. At the end of the game, the momentum with with Magic and fatigue has kicked in really for us I believe.”

A key moment highlighted by Green was the warning issued to defender Sam Salzone in the first half. Green highlighted that the rick of keeping a warned player on court means any further infringement could see that player sent off and you cannot replace them.

“It didn’t feel like at any point in the game we could take that risk,” Green continued. “Sam [Salzone] was benched and we didn’t feel like we could risk losing a player.

“With Becca Forrest not being available for this game, we were down to Molly Carre and Flo Allo to marshal the defence.

“Molly is such a dominant force at Goal Defence and Flo is young talent, she hasn’t even played much with this senior group in the RL1 league, let alone at the Premiership level.

“But she’s been doing incredibly well in the programme, she’s such a talented netball player, she’s in the Team Bath academy structure and her first introduction to Premiership netball was 45 minutes of intense game play when she couldn’t really be replaced.

“All credit must go to her for standing up to the pressure at such a young age and for her to want to get stuck in and really give her all was amazing to see. We told her to be excited, to be brave, go hunt the ball and to make life hell for them and I thought she did an amazing job.”

Green admits the fatigue shown at the end of the game, combined with some clever strategical changes from Magic resulted in the comeback.

“They really punished us at the back end, we were a bit depleted in defense and they capitalized on that. It was really unfortunate, especially for Sam [Salzone].

“We didn’t really understand the call if I’m being honest, it was a very physical game and there were lots of occasions where our players were sent flying across the court, but there were no warnings given to any of the Magic players.

“There was a sense of unfairness I think, we were all a bit shocked as to why she’d picked up this warning, but we just had to cope with what we had in front of us.

“Flo and Molly did their best and they tried to chip away, but because of the fatigue, errors were high across the game around the whole court.”

Despite the disappointment, coach green was keen to give plaudits to her opponents.“We can’t take anything away from Magic, they earned their draw because they were well organized and played a solid tactical game.

“Despite this, we know we made a lot of errors. There were two separate foot faults called, which is an absolute coach killer if I’m honest.

“It was less passing and feeding errors, it was more impeding errors, things that are easily avoidable. The girls are aware of that and they all expressed disappointment about that.

“From an offensive perspective, Magic really flooded their defensive area of the court and they made it really hard for us. Our attackers showed a really good level of understanding however and they communicated with each other really well to work out ways they could be effective themselves on offense which was really pleasing.

“There were several occasions where we were on a roll and were putting six or several unanswered goals up against a really good team, so there’s definitely positives to take away from it and things we can build on.

“It was our first run out for a while, we haven’t played competitively since the playoffs which was in May, it’s now September, so that match awareness always takes a bit to come back.

“I know we have the Upton’s and the Inter Insular’s, but it’s nowhere near this standard, so to have such a break in this level of competitive match play is always challenging and you have to expect that there will be a bit of rust and we have to be mindful of that going into our next game.”

That next fixture is an exciting one for the Jets, who host their first home game of the new Premier League 3 season this Sunday 21 September at Oakfield Sports Centre where they welcome Exeter, set for a 10.30am start.

Evelyn Partners Jets Squad:Rosie Tonner (c), Jodie Blampied (vc), Emily Le Gros, Grace Thompson, Lily Jones, Maddie Fitzgerald Wilkins, Jacy Brown, Toni Chaytor, Nicole Goddard, Molly Carre, Sam Salzone, Florence Allo