The Diamonds are vowing to finish the Constellation Cup series with a bang, with skipper Liz Watson admitting her side is hurting from three successive losses to New Zealand to surrender the prized netball trophy.
The Australians lost two games in New Zealand before a whopping 18-point defeat in Perth on Sunday night for the Silver Ferns to take the Cup.
The world No.1 team have one final chance in Melbourne on Wednesday night, desperate to prevent the Kiwisâ first 4-0 clean sweep of the series.
Watson said the match was still important despite the trophy in New Zealandâs keeping for just the third time since 2010.
âItâs obviously disappointing knowing that the series is over and that we havenât won the Cup but we had a good chat before about bringing that excitement off and wanting to finish the series off playing the way that we want to play,â Watson said on Tuesday.
âEveryone recognises we havenât been at our best the last three games and New Zealand have and thatâs what it takes to win.
âIt absolutely hurts and probably the most disappointing thing is the way weâre losing and the scoreboard, having three in a row as well.â
âItâs come down to lots of silly errors that weâre making ⌠we want to be proud of our performance because we havenât been.
A regular for 60 minutes, Watson has spent time on the bench as coach Stacey Marinkovich searched for the right combination to stop the Silver Fernsâ charge.
New Zealand shooter Grace Nweke has taken her game to a new level, scoring 144 goals in the three games.
Watson backed the coachâs call.
âItâs part of elite sport and you canât be out there all the time.
âObviously losing by 18 goals or whatever it was, something has to change, and whether thatâs positions, personnel, whatever it may be, we canât expect to always just put the same thing out there and get a different result.â
She said she wasnât sure of the selection for game four, and if Marinkovich would use the game to expose more players given the series was already lost.
âThatâs probably a really big decision for Stace right now,â the star midcourter said.
âI think people have come on and done a really good job â obviously Georgie (Horjus) in her debut was incredible to come on and do that but I think we need to make sure that we do get the value out of this series ⌠we as athletes just want to win, no matter what it is, so whoeverâs out there is going to be hungry to do that.â
Â
Melissa Woods
(Australian Associated Press)
Â