Australia will take on England in the Commonwealth Games bronze medal match.<\/p>\n
Via AAP<\/p>\n
The Diamonds\u2019 gold medal defence at the Commonwealth Games is over after a dramatic after-the-siren loss to Jamaica.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s three-goal burst reduced Jamaica\u2019s lead to one goal with 36 seconds remaining in Glasgow, setting the stage for a thriller.<\/p>\n
A frantic finish ended with Jamaica penalised and the ball in the hands of Sophie Dwyer, who had a chance to level the score after the siren.<\/p>\n
But Jamaica prevailed 46-45 after Dwyer\u2019s shot missed, with teammates rushing to support her as Australia were consigned to a bronze-medal match against England.<\/p>\n
The 2022 Birmingham champions had walked into Saturday\u2019s semi-final as the overwhelming favourites after bulldozing their way through five pool matches without breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n
But the world No.1 outfit was left shellshocked in front of a near-capacity crowd at the Hydro that included William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales.<\/p>\n
The Diamonds crumbled under relentless pressure brought by the Sunshine Girls, who will face New Zealand in the final.<\/p>\n
Australia trailed by three goals at quarter-time before playing catch-up to make it level at 35-35 at the final break.<\/p>\n
The two nations went goal for goal until a bad pass from Kiera Austin near the edge of the circle opened the door for Jamaica\u2019s ascendancy.<\/p>\n
The Diamonds\u2019 all-star attacking partnership of Melbourne Vixens pair Austin and Sophie Garbin struggled to hit top gear against Jamaican defenders Shamera Sterling-Humphrey and Latanya Wilson.<\/p>\n
Just as she did in last month\u2019s Super Netball grand final, Adelaide Thunderbirds star Sterling-Humphrey nullified Vixens shooter Garbin (four goals\/four goal attempts).<\/p>\n
Diamonds coach Stacey Marinkovich pulled the pin after the first break, putting veteran Cara Koenen (18\/20) in Garbin\u2019s place.<\/p>\n
At the other end, goalkeeper Courtney Bruce gave away a whopping 14 contact penalties and five obstruction penalties against West Coast Fever veteran Romelda Aiken-George (29\/32) before being subbed off for Sarah Klau in the second half.<\/p>\n
Australia had a healthy travelling contingent to support them at the Hydro, but it was the Jamaicans who had the Scottish crowd on side.<\/p>\n
Jamaica will vie for their first gold medal, while the Silver Ferns defeated England in their semi and are now one win away from snapping their 16-year Games title drought.<\/p>\n
The Silver Ferns haven\u2019t won gold since the 2010 Delhi Games, where they defeated Australia to defend their 2006 Melbourne title.<\/p>\n
New Zealand have also been absent from the past two gold medal matches since finishing runners-up in 2014, the world No.2 settling for fourth in 2018 and bronze in 2022.<\/p>\n
But they won\u2019t be at full strength for Sunday\u2019s final after highly-rated defender Catherine Hall ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in her knee during their pool victory over Wales.<\/p>\n
Goal attack Georgia Heffernan also suffered an ankle injury against Wales, but played through soreness to help New Zealand beat England.<\/p>\n
Heffernan fired off nine goals from 10 attempts against and provided 15 goal assists to support star shooter Grace Nweke, who finished with 52 goals from 57 attempts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia will take on England in the Commonwealth Games bronze medal match. Via AAP The Diamonds\u2019 gold medal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":838079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-838078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838078","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=838078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}