WEDNESDAY’s final Constellation Cup match brought mixed emotions for New Zealand, because although they lost that match they were still able to celebrate post match because they had already won the whole series.

Speaking after Wednesday night’s final test of the series, Silver Ferns coach Dame Noeline Taurua was reflective of it all.

“I thought they played very well,” she said. “I thought off the centre pass attack, they had a bit more speed on there, pulled us apart a wee bit. Conversely, I thought that we got caught chasing and didn’t quite stick to what we know that we can do in defence or our attack. Moments of beautiful play out there, but not consistently overall. We got all 12 on, so a bit of an information opportunity for us.”

Having joined her coach for the post match debrief, Silver Ferns’ captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio explained that her side found themselves in a new position heading into this game.

“It’s been an interesting time for us because we’ve actually never been in this position,” Ekenasio explained.

“So it was new territory for us. I think really we knew as a team, as players as well, we really backed that we wanted to get everybody on court. I mean, we all know as players is that experience out there on court is second to none, so that was huge for us. Lots of us who have been the starting seven really wanted to build a good platform for them to be able to come out on to.

“We didn’t do that unfortunately in this game, but I think we set the precedence in the last three games and we knew that we had a little bit more freedom. We probably didn’t express ourselves in the way we wanted to finish off this last game.”

Although the Silver Ferns did not achieve the series clean sweep, Taurua confirmed that her side still got all they wanted out of the match.

“We got to about that last quarter, there was about five minutes, 40 seconds and we were starting to creep back in there about five or six down and the momentum started to swing,” Taurua said.

“Unfortunately, we whatever happened from our end so we weren’t able to nudge up and then they got a great run going into the home final. In saying that, got some good positions out there.

Moving forward obviously we look at another one, two, three years leading into the World Cup. Looking at the chemistry of who is out there and position wise, and so I’ve got a good look with everybody out there.”

One player who got a chance to show what she can do was Amelia Walmsley, whose role is really going to grow in the next 12 months.

“Obviously with Gracie over in SSN, we’ve had her nearly two years now. She’d got a lot of court time when we played against England last year,” Taurua said.

“Good to see her out there, I thought she was solid with both her and Mills [Ekenasio] out there. Had a little bit of heebie jeebies, but sort of consolidated herself.

“She’s got good hops, just need a lot of confidence as well. So I was actually quite pleased to get her out at goal attack as well. That was one of my things I wanted to do, just to see how far or close we are in whether that actually a viable option for us.”