Keenan: Northumbria Will Tough It Out

Te Aroha Keenan wants to see her Team Northumbria stars get physical and get smart ahead of the club's next Sport Central clash against Sirens.

Surrey Storm out-thought and out-muscled the hosts as the Netball Superleague returned to Tyneside.

And Keenan wants to see a positive reaction from her players in practice this week following a 62-46 loss against the reigning champions.

“Surrey are a physical team with players who know their way around this league,” said TN’s coach. “The physicality is something we need to look at.

“It’s always going to be there and we knew exactly what we’d come up against this weekend.

“I thought we contained Megan Craig well for long periods of the game. Leah Kennedy made a decent fist of handling a very powerful shooter and I was pleased with her performance.

“But Storm are a tough team across the court and if things aren’t going our way we need to react to that.

“I don’t think we could have got much more physical ourselves - there is only so far you can go within the laws of the game!

“But if that’s the case then we need to be smarter.

“I want us to play a certain way and to deliver a certain brand of netball but we can’t do that if we’re being physically challenged to such a degree.

“It’s something we’ll look at closely this week ahead of the Sirens match a week on Monday.”

TN trailed by six after a disappointing end to the first quarter but the hosts had reduced the deficit to just three by half-time.

Player-of-the-match Kennedy and Tuaine Keenan had forced towering shooter Craig to fight for every point.

And Chiara Semple reprised her superb shooting display against Wasps with another masterclass at the offensive end.

“Unfortunately we just let the get away from us in the second half,” added Keenan. “We were in contention after the first half but I was concerned that we weren’t making enough inroads when it mattered.

“We had 11 turnovers in the first half but only scored four goals from those turnovers. We can’t afford to be so wasteful in possession.

“Surrey made everything that little bit harder for us after half-time - they turned te screw.”

Kennedy spent four minutes off court in the third quarter after picking up a head injury following an off the ball clash with Craig.

And despite the England international’s return to the fray TN trailed 46-37 heading into the fourth period.

Craig sat out the final quarter but the visitors continued to pose an offensive threat and ran out comfortable winners in front of a typically passionate Sport Central crowd.

TN take on Sirens on Monday March 13.