Australia has missed the chance of wrapping up the Constellation Cup in the third Test, with New Zealand recording a 61-52 victory in Hamilton.<\/p>\n
The Diamonds hosted the opening two Tests of the series, winning both by comfortable 17-goal margins.<\/p>\n
A triumph in Hamilton would have seen the Diamonds regain the Constellation Cup, but their fortunes changed across the Tasman, with the Silver Ferns rebounding on home soil.<\/p>\n
Grace Nweke stood up for the Silver Ferns, shooting 44 goals from 46 attempts.<\/p>\n
Sophie Garbin led the scoring for the Diamonds with 22 goals.<\/p>\n
The Diamonds have lost nine straight games in New Zealand, with their most recent win coming in 2021.<\/p>\n
The fourth and final Test will be played in Christchurch on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
If the Silver Ferns win that game to level the series at 2-2, the teams will contest a mini-match dubbed Series Decider Time, which consists of two seven-minute halves.<\/p>\n
Should the Series Decider Time be required, the winning team will claim the Constellation Cup.<\/p>\n
The Silver Ferns received a major boost ahead of the third Test following the reinstatement of long-term coach Dame Noeline Taurua.<\/p>\n
Taurua has been stood down since September after player complaints about her communication style.<\/p>\n
But New Zealand Netball said she would again take the reins at the end of the year.<\/p>\n
With captain Karin Burger leading by example, the Silver Ferns led after each quarter.<\/p>\n
The Diamonds trailed 13-12 after a physical opening term, with the Silver Ferns having overhauled the visitors’ 5-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Both teams went on big runs in the second stanza, with the Silver Ferns scoring the first five goals of the quarter to lead 23-16, before the Diamonds responded with their own six-goal stretch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Silver Ferns dominated the Diamonds to lead at the end of each quarter. (Getty Images: Fiona Goodall)<\/p>\n
But the hosts took a 29-28 lead into half-time after forcing the Diamonds into making uncharacteristic errors.<\/p>\n
The Silver Ferns turned up the pressure another notch in the third quarter, leaving Diamonds coach Stacey Marinkovich to make a raft of changes as she attempted to stem the flow of goals.<\/p>\n
The changes included replacing her mid-court stars, captain Liz Watson and centre Kate Moloney, who had starred in the opening two Tests.<\/p>\n
They also temporarily lost goalkeeper Courtney Bruce, who limped off with an ankle injury, but was able to play out the game.<\/p>\n
But with goal-shooter Nweke dominating and veteran goalkeeper Kelly Jackson locking down Australia’s goal circle, New Zealand could not be stopped.<\/p>\n
The Silver Ferns led 49-39 at the end of the third quarter and were never genuinely threatened in the final term.<\/p>\n
ABC\/AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia has missed the chance of wrapping up the Constellation Cup in the third Test, with New Zealand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,122931,24718,887,1736,99059,85,128206],"class_list":["post-241431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-constellation-cup","tag-diamonds","tag-hamilton","tag-new-zealand","tag-silver-ferns","tag-sports","tag-third-test"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}