London Pulse kept alive their hopes of back-to-back Netball Super League titles with victory over Loughborough Lightning in the preliminary final and then warned Manchester Thunder: “We’re coming to spoil the party”.
Pulse recovered from a defeat to Thunder in last week’s semi-final which had rocked the camp and led to a player-led inquest, according to director of netball Sam Bird.
And Bird labelled their response against Lightning as “100 per cent” their best performance of the season as a 60-56 victory – inspired by Sophie Kelly – set up a rematch with Thunder in Manchester and denied their opponents a sixth straight appearance in the showpiece event.
Speaking to Sky Sports afterwards, Bird said: “I enjoyed the way we played. We talked about having that tenacity and belief and trying to break up the partnerships of Loughborough, and I thought we did that from beginning all the way through.
“After the first quarter I said that is our best quarter of the season, and then they just pushed on for the whole game.”
‘Leaders stood up’
The joyous scenes at the end were a far cry from last week, when the manner of defeat to the Thunder left Bird – and her players – dissatisfied.
“To be honest, the players came to me,” Bird said. “They knew I was upset. The leaders came and said ‘we can do better than this, this is on us’.
“It’s so good that the strong players in the squad stood up.”
‘I can’t wait to get another gold medal’
Kelly’s 22 goals and team-leading two interceptions from her favourite goal attack position earned her the player-of-the-match award.
She said afterwards: “We played [Manchester] last week and didn’t put in our best performance, but we know we can be great, just like today.
“We’re going to go to win, we want to go back-to-back, we know we can do it and we’re super-excited. Can’t wait to get another gold medal!”
