ANZ Championship: NSW Swifts star Kim Green ready to rock against Queensland Firebirds

NETBALLER Kim Green has declared her body as strong as her will to win ahead of the NSW Swifts battle with the Queensland Firebirds in the Australian conference final on Monday.

NSW Swifts captain Kim Green says she is as fit and strong as she has ever been.

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NETBALLER Kim Green has declared her body as strong as her will to win ahead of the NSW Swifts battle with the Queensland Firebirds in the Australian conference final on Monday.

The former Australian players is adamant her body can cope with the physicality of finals netball and says she is finally free of pain from an injury which sidelined her for a month.

Despite the seriousness of the injury, Green maintains a partial ACL tear has healed and will not impact her on the court in Monday’s Australian Conference Final against the Firebirds in Brisbane.

The Swifts v Firebirds match is tipped to be a bruising encounter.

In fact the veteran midcourter believes she may have gained freshness and form from the rehabilitation from the injury which has been “like a mini-preseason’’ ahead of the final series of the ANZ Championships.

“I feel great. I pulled up really well and the knee is completely stable,’’ said Green of her recovery from her first full game of netball in almost two months against the Melbourne Vixens in the elimination final last weekend.

The second oldest member of the NSW club at 30, the former Diamond maintains she has never been in better shape ahead of the Firebirds clash on Monday.

“I’m super strong and my testing results this season are my best for years,’’ said Green, one of only two players in the Swifts to have experienced winning an ANZ Championship with the club back in 2008.

The Swifts Kim Green lunges for a ball during her first full game in a number of weeks against the Vixens.

Green believes the Swifts pulled out their best performance of the year in defeating Vixens to set up their tussle with Firebirds but more improvement is required if her side want to host an ANZ Championship semi-final by winning on Monday.

The game is a rematch of last year’s ANZ Championship grand final which the Firebirds won by a goal.

The Swifts are adamant that while they learned lessons from the loss, it is not a motivating factor for a team which underwent wholesale changes in the lead-up to the 2016 season.

“What we want is to play out best netball,’’ she said.

“We are starting to play the netball we want to play but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

“The blessing is we haven’t coming back from a week off. That traditionally doesn’t work for us.’

While the Swifts will take momentum into the game the Firebirds have the advantage of playing in front of a home crowd on Monday,

The winner of the Australian Conference final will go on to play the loser of the New Zealand equivalent on Sunday between the undefeated Southern Steel and Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic, coached by former Swifts coach Julie Fitzgerald.