Hannah Joseph: Lightning must bring their own energy to the Copper Box

Hannah Joseph hopes Loughborough Lightning can replicate their last visit to the Copper Box and book their place in the Netball Super League Grand Final.

Lightning beat London Pulse 58-53 in May, the only side to defeat the regular season table-toppers at home this season.

It continued Lightning’s fine record of results at the venue, with their last two Grand Final victories also coming in east London.

Joseph knows her side will continue to fine tune their performance, but will be using last month’s victory as the base ahead of Friday’s major semi-final clash against the same opponents.

She said: “Last time we went down there we were super pleased with our performance for around 50 minutes so going into this one, we are looking at what we did well and how we can repeat that as well as those areas we want to fix up.

“Going away to Pulse is always a really hard place to play. They have so many fans and the Copper Box can get very loud at times, but we will prepare for this major semi-final as we would prepare for any semi-final.

“It is probably going to be majority Pulse, so it is a good opportunity to see how we can get around each other and find our own energy.”

Lightning finished second in the regular season table, five points behind Pulse after defeat on the final day to Birmingham Panthers.

It was a fourth loss of the season for the defending champions, and Joseph hopes her side can take heed of any lessons learned before they travel to London on Friday.

“We were really disappointed with the loss, we always go out there to win. More than anything we didn’t feel like we performed,” she added.

“It definitely will give us a kick in the right direction and fire us up but ideally we would have won that and performed well. That’s the way you want to go into semi-finals. Ultimately though for semi-finals it is about how you turn up on the day.”

Lightning have plenty of big match experience in their ranks, with Joseph one of the core members of the side who have won the last two Netball Super League titles.

Vic Burgess was able to add experienced names such as Samantha Wallace-Joseph, Shadine van der Merwe and Jodie Gibson to the ranks this season and Joseph believes having that know-how will serve them well.

“The big thing is all of us stepping up,” she said. “There are leaders like Nat [Panagarry] who are super vocal but you need everyone to be contributing in their own way, even if that looks different.

“The amount of experience we have in the squad and the number of people who have played in finals puts us in a good place because it is very different.”

While Lighting have good memories from their last encounter with Pulse, they will also be keenly aware of the reverse fixture back in March which saw Pulse power to a 77-51 win.

“That loss against Pulse was huge for us,” said Joseph. “It was very early on in the season and as a squad we could rationalise that some of it was performance and some of it was just where we were in the season.

“There have been some losses we weren’t overly pleased with this year but there aren’t huge blowout games anymore. There are super competitive games and for the sport that is a good place to be.”

Friday’s prize is a ticket straight to the Grand Final at the O2 Arena on 6 July.

The loser must fight again in next weekend’s Preliminary Final, against either Manchester Thunder or London Mavericks before they too can dream of the O2.

“To play at the O2 is going to be amazing,” added Joseph. “The way the fans have got behind games this year has been amazing, netball has been bigger than ever.

“To get a final at the O2 is huge. We said at the start of the season we wanted to be there, we want to win three championships in a row but there are still some matches to win before we get to that point.”

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