{"id":552030,"date":"2026-07-30T22:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/552030\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T22:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:36:10","slug":"perfect-pearson-fires-england-into-netball-semi-final-showdown-with-new-zealand-commonwealth-games-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/552030\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfect Pearson fires England into netball semi-final showdown with New Zealand | Commonwealth Games 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

England stormed back from a six-goal deficit at the end of the first quarter to book their place in the netball semi-finals with a 58-54 win over South Africa.<\/p>\n

Anna Stembridge\u2019s side went into the game knowing defeat would mean them failing to reach the last four of the competition for the first time since the sport was introduced to the Games in 1998.<\/p>\n

A thumping 66-47 defeat by Australia in their second Group A game had left their qualification hopes hanging by a thread and they started as slight underdogs against the South Africans, to whom they lost a bruising three-match series in January.<\/p>\n

England could not contain towering South Africa goal shooter Elmer\u00e8 van der Berg, who dominated the shooting circle in the opening quarter, with Stembridge\u2019s side punished for failing to capitalise on their turnovers.<\/p>\n

The loss of centre Imogen Allison, who hobbled off with an ankle injury early in the second quarter, further threatened their chances, but England rallied with the help of eight from Lois Pearson to pull back to a single-goal deficit at half-time.<\/p>\n

The introduction of goal defence Halimat Adio made the difference in the third quarter as she shackled Van der Berg superbly while Pearson\u2019s continued accuracy gave the Roses a 43-39 advantage.<\/p>\n

England maintained their advantage throughout a muscular fourth quarter and Pearson finished with a perfect 17 goals from 17 shots to set up a semi-final against New Zealand on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Stembridge said: \u201cWe spoke around not getting too many opportunities like this, where it\u2019s the last game of the pool stages and ultimately it decides a semi-final position.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe girls leaned into that pressure and they really trusted one another. We did not catastrophise the first quarter. We knew we had more to give, and I\u2019m just delighted that we gave enough to get ourselves into a semi-final.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England stormed back from a six-goal deficit at the end of the first quarter to book their place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-552030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}