The third team we look at in our build up to this weekend’s Quad Series, is world number 3 England.
Tracey Neville’s side will be looking to better their 3rd placed finish in the last Quad Series. The Roses are comfortably the most experienced of the 4 squads with a combined 825 caps to date. A large portion of those caps come from Jade Clarke who has 135 and Geva Mentor who has 116. In fact, everybody in the squad has at least 1 cap to their name signifying that England are the only side not to be handing out debuts over the Quad Series. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all have at least one player expected to win their first cap in this tournament.
Many players within the Roses squad will be all too familiar with playing on Australian soil, as 8 out of 15 in the squad play their club netball in the Australian Suncorp Super League. This includes captain Ama Agboze who plays her club netball for Adelaide Thunderbirds.
Full squad can be seen here.
England also are by far the farthest travelers, completing a 10,000 mile trip over to Brisbane where they play their first game against defending champions Australia. The last time these sides met was in the last Quad Series back in January/February, where the Roses agonizingly lost 47-46 following a 4th quarter comeback by the world champions.
The Roses second match comes from Auckland where they play New Zealand a side who comfortably beat them in their last Quad Series encounter. England fell to a 61 – 37 defeat at the hands of the Silver Ferns and will look to improve this time around.
The final Quad Series match sees the Roses take on South Africa which last time around provided a thrilling and historic test match. It was the first Quad Series match in history to go into extra time in which the Roses took the win by 60-55.
England’s results in the last Quad Series:
England 46 – 47 Australia
England 37 – 61 New Zealand
England 60 – 55 South Africa (*after extra time)
The full schedule for the upcoming Quad Series are below. Note: all times are local times to that venue.
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Will experience prevail for the Roses?