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STARTING SEVEN: GS Garbin, GA Austin, WA Watson, C Moloney, WD Price, GD Weston, GK Bruce<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a disastrous Commonwealth Games debut for Tonga as they stare down a 51-19 deficit while concerns are held for injured star Uneeq Palavi.<\/p>\n
Palavi had done the bulk of the Tala\u2019s scoring against Australia before appearing to injure her finger late in the second term and heading straight to the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not what you want to see \u2013 certainly the star of the show for Tonga,\u201d Aussie netball great Cath Cox said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrabs the hand straight away, Palavi.<\/p>\n
\u201cPalavi, the top goal scorer for Tonga in the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was the fourth highest for all the shooters in the World Cup so they need her on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
The injury summed up a horror start as the Diamonds simply ran riot to open up their 32-goal margin.<\/p>\n
Cox joked Australia were \u201calmost leaving trails of fire behind them\u201d in the second term as they transitioned at will.<\/p>\n
But Tonga were their own worst enemy with multiple centre breaks and wayward passes coughing up easy ball that the Diamonds cashed in from.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Australia were off to a red-hot start in Glasgow on Saturday as attackers Kiera Austin and Sophie Garbin did as they pleased.<\/p>\n
Tonga may have trailed by just one goal 5 minutes into the opening term, but the Diamonds then took over.<\/p>\n
Austin (9\/9, five goal assists) did as she pleased while Garbin (14\/16) held strong under the post.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is just running around free as a bird,\u201d Diamonds great Kim Green said of Austin.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment it\u2019s just way too easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the first change, it was Australia leading 23-12.<\/p>\n
DIAMONDS WELCOME THE PRESSURE<\/p>\n
Captain Liz Watson believes Australia are raring to go in their gold medal defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a Diamond you always want to win and are expected to win \u2013 that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had great success in the past \u2026 (but) it\u2019s a new group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a privilege to be number one in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Diamonds are aiming for a remarkable fifth Commonwealth Games gold \u2013 and to go back-to-back for just the second time in their history.<\/p>\n
FERNS START WITH BIG WIN<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s rivals New Zealand opened their Comm Games account with a comfortable 30-goal win over host nation Scotland.<\/p>\n
Th Silver Ferns won every quarter on their way to a 74-44 victory in the first match of the tournament.<\/p>\n
Grace Nweke (29\/30) and Amelia Walmsley (28\/34) both shone in their half a game at goal shooter while Catherine Hall, who was under an injury cloud heading into this Commonwealth Games, was the only Fern not to take to the court in the win.<\/p>\n
Grace Nweke starred in the first half for New Zealand.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThey got a bit of a shock in that first quarter,\u201d triple international Cat Tuivaiti said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Scottish side they really put up a fight for a large portion of this game.<\/p>\n
\u201cScotland were keeping up with them, but where they were let down was that accuracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Super Netball premiership winner Kate Heffernan simply picked up where she left off for the Thunderbirds with four midcourt intercepts – equal best to teammate Kelly Jackson. Jackson finished with seven gains in total, one ahead of Carys Stythe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe improved throughout the game \u2013 hopefully more improvement going forward,\u201d Ferns skipper Karin Burger said post-match.<\/p>\n
Thistle Emma Barrie led the way for Scotland with 20 goals, but her side finished at just 75% accuracy in the loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world No.1 ranked Australian Diamonds start their gold medal defence on Saturday night with a big clash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,85],"class_list":["post-822813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822813","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=822813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}