LAST weekend saw Manchester Thunder bring Loughborough Lightning’s undefeated run to an end, and one key part of the Thunder’s win was defender Shadine Van der Merwe. The experienced South African played a crucial role in quelling the influence of key Lightning players, which allowed the Thunder to move ahead on the scoreboard and take the win.

This Player Focus is going to take a deep dive into her game and see what made her so good in the win.

Although she started the game at goal defence, it was clear that Van Der Merwe has been instructed to help out team mate Kerry Almond who was playing goal keeper against the formidable Mary Cholhok.

From the first centre pass, as Emma Thacker got the ball just outside the circle and went to feed it into Cholhok. Instead of defending the pass on Thacker’s end, Van Der Merwe rolled back into the circle and aimed to intercept the ball as it got to Cholhok, essentially double teaming the star shooter alongside Almond.

This began a trend in behaviour from Van Der Merwe.

She would stay defending Thacker outside the circle as the ball was heading towards the Lightning attacking circle, but once Thacker got the ball outside the ring, Van Der Merwe’s focuses shifted and she would straight away move back to help defend Cholhok.

This strategy showed that Van Der Merwe had the experience and research behind her to know who was more dangerous out of the two shooters and how neutralising Cholhok’s influence is the key to downing Loughborough.

Van Der Merwe changed her strategy in the second quarter to focus more on defending Thacker, but the double teaming strategy from her and Almond from the first quarter really quelled Cholhok’s influence and kept her to a single figure goal tally for the quarter.

Van Der Merwe is also a very good reader of the ball in flight, and a quick responder when necessary.

She can go from chasing her opponent in one direction to stopping and running back with the flight of the ball in the other direction to intercept a pass heading into the circle, as she did early in the first quarter on the weekend.

Even though she does often hang back in her side’s defensive third as the Lightning came forward, Van Der Merwe was not afraid to attack the ball and take the intercept and start an attacking momentum for her team.

Even when the ball was heading towards the Thunder attacking end, Van Der Merwe was an attenuative goal defence, always trying to be in the best legal position to help her team out.