By Netball Australia -

New Zealand has won the World Netball Series in Manchester, beating Jamaica 32-27 in the Final.

Despite finishing third and fourth at the end of day two, both the Silver Ferns and the Sunshine girls peaked at the important end of the Series and were extremely impressive in their semi-final wins over Australia and England.

The Ferns turned the tables on Australia to win their semi final after a strong start by the Silver Ferns had the Diamonds trailing all match. The Ferns raced away to an early lead after the defensive pairing of Williams and Grant rattled the Australian shooters into early misses.

Both teams played their power plays in the third quarter but it was the Ferns who dominated this crucial six minutes outscoring the Australians 14 – 4 to go into the last quarter with an impressive 13-goal margin that was always going to prove difficult for Australia to pull back in the final quarter.

Jamaica was impressive in the play off 1 v 4, with nothing to lose; they dominated England from the opening whistle, leading in every quarter. England surprised many by starting without their top shooter Jo Harten and while she came on in the first quarter and sunk some long range shots from outside the circle, they were never able to catch Jamaica who extended their lead with every mistake England made, running out 33-22 victors.

When the Diamonds met England in the play off for third, it would have been the match many predicted on form would be determining the winner, but it wasn’t to be.

Australia were raring to go and took a lead in the first quarter that they surrendered only once in the game.  England looked a little tired finding it tough to match the mobility of the Diamonds.

Both teams called their Power Plays in the third quarter, but England were unable to close the gap on their rivals by using the power-play although they did go ahead briefly after Sonia Mkoloma won a turn-over and Pamela Cookey landed the shot.

Despite stepping up the marking and keeping the ball out of as much danger as possible England could not catch Australia even with some double-pointers from Jo Harten.

With Thanks To Netball Australia