WELCOME to After the Fact, a new series here at Rookie Me Central, chatting to key figures in the Suncorp Super Netball post match and get their thoughts on the match that just transpired and the bigger issues in the game.

Today’s chat, in the second of two this week, is with star Adelaide shooter Eleanor Cardwell, who spoke to Rookie Me Central after her side’s loss to Collingwood last weekend.

A clearly annoyed Cardwell post match said that the match was “a bit frustrating because we couldn’t really get out flow, and I think that’s what Magpies are always trying to do anyway, to try and stop your flow.”

“We could have done a lot better just being more clinical with ball and just stepping up to the mark really,” Cardwell said. “That’s not good enough when it comes to finals but we’ve learnt a lot about ourselves and at the end of the day they really wanted that win, and I mean we wanted to win but they had something to fight whereas we are already in finals. That’s not an excuse but I don’t know, it’s just kind of one of those games.”

After being well beaten for the first three quarters the Thunderbirds really lifted in the final quarter. Cardwell said at three quarter time, coach Tania Obst said “all she wants us to do is when we’re getting the ball not just letting someone get a hand in and taking the ball of us, because that’s kind of the difference from the third quarter to the fourth. They were running hard onto ball and we just weren’t pulling it in. If we had just collected some of them in the third quarter I think it would have been a different story.”

It was clear at times that Cardwell was getting frustrated out on court.

“I was just trying to create some energy for my team” she said.

“We were a bit flat at times so I was just at any point create energy and get the girls behind me. It’s going to be frustrating if you’re down, it’s going to be that way and I mean Geva [Mentor] is a great goal keeper. She’s one of the best goal keepers in the world, and it’s just frustrating when things aren’t flowing.”

This weekend the Thunderbirds have got a match against the Lightning, and to bounce back Cardwell believes that “we’ve just got to go through our processes. We’ve got to look at that game, look at ourselves and fix the little things,” she said. “We’ve got to be able to step up as a team and think how we want to perform going into finals and if we want momentum we need to put on a performance next week.”

Cardwell is almost at the end of her first season in Australia, and she speaks very fondly of how she has found her time in Australia so far.

“It’s been great, I’ve been loving it. It’s a very hard contest, as you’ve just seen there, the bottom team can beat the top team so every single week you can’t just switch off, you’ve just got to keep going, do your homework on the team and bring it every week.”