The Silver Ferns will have to beat England in the semi-finals in Glasgow if they are to make their first Commonwealth Games gold medal match since 2014.
England will have their tails up after putting up their best performance in Glasgow by far with a 58-54 win over the fifth-ranked South Africa on Friday morning.
Anticipation was high that South Africa would pull off an upset over the third ranked England Roses in the last pool match of the tournament.
Earlier in the week, the Diamonds posted a 19-goal win over England, before beating South Africa by a 10-goal margin.
With South Africa beating England 2-1 in a series earlier in the year, Pool A was always considered the ‘Pool of Death’.
The Silver Ferns topped Pool B earlier in the day after demolishing Trinidad and Tobago 83-23 to make it five straight wins.
Australia went through Pool A unbeaten, and will meet Jamaica in the second semi-final at midnight Saturday evening. The Silver Ferns and England will meet at 8pm Saturday New Zealand time.
The New Zealanders were reduced to 10 players for their final pool match with young defender Catherine Hall awaiting a MRI scan to determine the extent of a knee injury suffered in the previous match against Wales.
Shooter Georgia Heffernan was also left off the team sheet after suffering an ankle knock in the same match but coach Dame Noeline Taurua said Heffernan would be available for selection for the semi-final.
At the 2023 Netball World Cup, the Silver Ferns suffered a massive blow when strike shooter Grace Nweke suffered a tournament ending injury in pool play. The Ferns finished outside of the medals in fourth.
Taurua said selectors picked a versatile squad.
“We’re always looking at the depth and making sure that if an injury happens or people can’t take the court, we’ve already got the depth and we knew that in each position we’ve got three deep,” Taurua said.
“The positive is that we’re in towards the business end. We’re not at the beginning, so we’ve got fresh legs and that’s why those combinations and the changes that we’ve made earlier in the tournament, we’ve got something in our back pocket.”
The 10 players were rotated throughout the match as New Zealand went on to post their highest score and biggest winning margin in 24 outings against a poor Trinidad & Tobago.
The Silver Ferns went through pool play unbeaten, with earlier wins over Scotland, Jamaica, Uganda, and Wales.
The Proteas boast one of the best shooters in the world in Elmeré van der Berg, who scored the most goals in her debut season in Australia’s Suncorp Super Netball competition this year.
South Africa came out strong to win the first quarter 17-11 but a defensive change for England saw them mount a fight-back in the second spell.
Coming on at goal keep Halimat Adio applied all kinds of pressure on van der Berg and put doubt into the feeders minds.
At half-time, South Africa held a slim 29-28 goal lead.
South Africa lost their starting wing attack to a head knock in the third quarter, which disrupted the Proteas attacking end.
England ramped up their efforts in the third quarter, to lead by four going into the final turn.
Liv Tchine and Lois Pearson combined brilliantly in the England shooting end.
Pearson has stepped up brilliantly into the goal attack position, with the England Roses missing the experienced Helen Housby through injury.
The Roses also lost impressive defender Jaz Brown in the lead-up to the event to injury but Adio’s efforts against South Africa show what she is capable of.
The Silver Ferns and England have played out some tight matches in recent years.
England beat New Zealand on their way to finishing runners up at the 2023 World Cup to Australia.
New Zealand won a hard fought 2-1 series victory over England in their final hit-out of 2025.