Netball: Diamonds expect wounded Silver Ferns to fire up

Today’s blockbuster semi is the first time Australia and New Zealand have met before the gold-medal match.

New Zealand captain Katrina Grant was reduced to tears by criticism of her team.

Former New Zealand Test cricketer Mark Richardson has defended the fierce public and media criticism of the Silver Ferns, in particular the interview that brought captain Katrina Grant to tears, by saying that if female athletes want equality in sport, well, here it is.

“These people complaining about that question — do they want equality?” Richardson said on NZ radio. “If this was the All Blacks losing, I would want them absolutely roasted. So do we have equality in our sport or not?

“They’re not out of the competition. They’re through to the semi-finals. If they topple Australia, it will be one of the great comebacks. We’ll celebrate that and rightly so. It gives an opportunity to prove the pride and start to win fans back.”

This afternoon’s blockbuster Commonwealth Games semi-final is the first time Australia’s ­Diamonds and the Silver Ferns have met before the gold-medal match. They’ve played a million last-second thrillers in one of the fiercest rivalries in world sport but the Kiwis’ struggles in the group stage meant they only just scraped into the playoffs.

The Silver Ferns have been hurt and humiliated by the negative public reaction to their defeats to Malawai and England — hence the general theme of discussions between NZ reporters and Australian players yesterday: Ixpicting a but of a bucklush? A what? A but of a bucklush? Are you ixpicting a but of a bucklush? Oh. A bit of a backlash. Yep. We’re expecting a bit of a backlash.

“It’s the Silver Ferns,” Liz Watson said. “It’s a final at the Comm Games. What happened in the rounds doesn’t matter now. It’s a whole new ball game. We know they’re going to come out firing.

“We have spoken about what they’re going to bring. They’ve got lots of experience against us as a team. They know well how we play. They know our strengths. It’s going to be a tough one. ”

The Diamonds want to shut down Maria Folau as desperately as the Rugby Australia wants to close down the Twitter account of her husband, Israel. She’s been the sole standout player in a Kiwi side reeling from the preliminary losses that have sparked so much angst in her homeland.

Grant crumbled at the mere mention of it. The Diamonds know that suggestions of the black dress becoming just another piece of skirt will have them in a dangerous frame of mind at the Coomera Sport and Leisure Centre.

“I guess it has always been that Australia-New Zealand rivalry,” Watson said. “It’s still there no matter what game it is, the gold-medal match or the final we’re playing tomorrow. It’s going to be tough. Every single game we play we want to get better and perform.”

Kim Ravaillion was in the ­Diamonds side that beat the Ferns 58-40 at the 2014 Glasgow Games. Since netball’s inclusion on the program in Malaysia in 1998, all five finals have been trans-Tasman clashes.

“They’ll step up against us,” ­Ravaillion said. “Maria (Folau) is definitely one of their key shooters and taking her out of the game will definitely benefit us. But we need a whole-team performance. We’ve got 12 team players, It’s the strongest 12 players we’ve had in a very long time. ”