THE South Africa Spar Proteas stunned the home crowd at London’s CopperBox Arena on Saturday night as they beat Commonwealth champions, England Roses, by three goals (48 – 45) on home soil.

Despite England pushing hard to win back the match, South Africa kept their heads up to drill in their first Northern Quad Series victory after a stellar start against Australia in round one.

The Spar Proteas started the final quarter ahead by three, scoring seven of the last ten shots on goal to not let the victory slip away as it did in the September 2018 Quad Series.

With only minutes left in the match South Africa were up by one goal, extending in the dying minute to snatch the three goal victory from a strong, but inaccurate England side.

Spar Proteas goal shooter, Lenize Potgieter starred in the three-point win, shooting 34/37 at 92 per cent accuracy. Potgieter’s shooting partner Maryka Holtzhausen only shot 14 goals from 16 attempts for the game, but was still effective moving the ball around the circle with wing attack and primary feeder Bongi Msomi.

Jo Harten and Helen Housby had an even start to the match, sharing the load before Housby took charge to come away with a confident 27 from 32 at 84 per cent accuracy. Harten shot at 81 per cent accuracy for the match, scoring 18 from 22, well below her usual shooting average.

Despite the star power of Roses shooting duo Harten and Housby, the two struggled in goals against arguably the best defensive partnership in the competition, Karla Pretorius and Phumza Maweni. Player of the match Pretorius crowded the circle and picked up intercepts, relying on Maweni to confuse space for the two shooters and deflect circle feeds. The effectiveness of the defensive pair was pivotal to the Spar Proteas victory, proving that South Africa will be a force to be reckoned with come the Netball World Cup in July.

Defensively the Roses were strong, keeping Holtzhausen to only sixteen shots on goal for the game, but the rotation between England defenders Geva Mentor and Eboni Usoro-Brown didn’t have the effect or control supporters are used to seeing in the circle. Layla Guscoth took the court as goal defence in Usoro-Brown’s place early in the second quarter, settling the defensive circle and finishing the game with three gains to Mentor’s four.

The Roses centre court battled hard throughout the game, with Chelsea Pitman having a strong game despite Proteas wing defence Shadine Van der Merwe stalking her on court. Pitman played out the game to finish with an effective 18 goal assists from 29 feeds, also leading the tally with 25 centre pass receives.

England will face a challenge going into their final game of the Northern Quad Series against the Australian Diamonds. The Roses will need to win by five or more points to win the competition ahead of the 2018 Netball World Cup, while Australia will want to continue their Quad Series winning streak. South Africa will come up against a settled New Zealand Silver Ferns side, so will want to maintain their round two composure to prove their place in the competition.

ENGLAND STARTING SEVEN

GS: Jo Harten
GA: Helen Housby
WA: Chelsea Pitman
C: Serena Guthrie
WD: Jade Clarke
GD: Eboni Usoro-Brown
GK: Geva Mentor
BENCH: Layla Guscoth, Rachel Dunn, Natalie Haythornthwaite, Razia Quashie, Fran Williams

SOUTH AFRICA STARTING SEVEN

GS: Lenize Potgieter
GA: Maryka Holtzhausen
WA: Bongi Msomi
C: Erin Burger
WD: Shadine Van der Merwe
GD: Karla Pretorius
GK: Phumza Maweni
BENCH: Khanyisa Chawane, Rome Dreyer, Renske Stoltz, Ine-Mari Venter, Zanele Vimbela