Wasps boost play-off hopes with win against London Pulse

Wasps started strongly to take an early five goal lead, with some excellent interceptions from Wasps Centre Amy Flanagan helping the nominal home team Wasps get the advantage. Wasps continued to extend their lead as the quarter continued to lead 14-7 at the first break at London Pulse’s usual home The Copper Box Arena.

Wasps continued the steady stream of goals in the second quarter to extend their lead out to nine goals midway through the period. Towards the end of the half Pulse fought back to make the game a lot tighter and leave it at 23-19 midway through the match.

Wasps stayed composed and kept their four-goal lead for the majority of the third quarter. Eventually Wasps managed to double that lead to eight goals, as they held a 34-26 advantage three quarters of the way into the game.

Wasps started with the momentum that they had left off with in the third quarter to extend their lead further to 11 goals at the midway through the fourth quarter. Pulse finished strongly and cut the lead back to five goals at full time. With the final score Wasps 42-37 London Pulse.

Mizuno Player of the Match Iona Christian was crucial in the win, with fast hands for some key interceptions and adding real thrust in the attacking end for Wasps.

“We definitely made hard work of that today. We had a really good start, which is something that we have been focusing on in training. But we dropped out in the second quarter, came back again in the third quarter, and then dropped out again at the end. So, we really need to work on getting a more consistent game next time. We made silly errors at critical moments in the game. Credit to Pulse for putting us under that pressure. We need to go away and come back stronger, because we’ve got a big weekend coming up next. We’ve got it within us to get that top four place, credit to all the girls because we ground out the win and we really needed that.” -Iona Christian (Mizuno Player of the Match)

“It is pretty stressful being a coach. What is frustrating is that we did see some brilliant netball, but we don’t do it for long enough patches. When something is working, we seem to change what we are doing and that’s incredibly frustrating to coach because I can’t do that bit for them. The first five minutes of that last quarter were exceptional, but we’ve got to work hard for every win. It’s all about getting in front of the defender, stopping the overheads, presenting to the ball, it’s simple stuff and then we stopped doing it. So, we’ve got to work harder for longer. I genuinely believed the whole way through that we were going to win the game. Pulse were great today, they’ve found form and they’ve got nothing to lose. But I’m really pleased with our team and they should be proud of themselves. We knew it was going to be a battle, we’ve now got a bit of a buffer going into next weekend. The girls know what they’ve got to work on, and we are determined that we are going to fight in all four of our remaining games.” - Mel Mansfield (Wasps Netball Head Coach)

“I genuinely absolutely loved that game. This is London Pulse; this is what we can do. Of course, we are frustrated that we didn’t get over the line, but there has been great improvement in this squad and every other club knows we are a threat. I’m just really proud of the way the players played today. We’ve got to remember that for lots of them it is their first real taste of Superleague. Yes, there are some small errors, but the overall performances are really good and we all genuinely enjoyed that. We’ve got the momentum after a strong game against Thunder, a strong game again today. It’s showing the talent is coming together and the connections are coming together. We’ll take a lot from this performance.” -Sam Bird (London Pulse Director of Netball)

Match report by Wasps