NEW Zealand Silver Ferns head coach Dame Noeline Taurua was frank post-match on Wednesday night, after her team could not wrap up the Constellation Cup series against the Australian Diamonds.

When asked what went wrong out on court in Melbourne, Taurua had a clear idea.

“Well we lost, that’d be the first thing,” she said. Secondly, I thought we had enough ball in the first quarter to be able to take it through. We got ourselves on the back foot. I thought the physicality was two fold in regards to Australia and our ability to execute under that pressure probably eluded us right throughout the game. Moments we were actually alright, we were able to pull it back, but not consistently throughout, so that’s how it goes.”

The Diamonds brought a lot of physicality to the court on Wednesday night, which did not come as a surprise to the visitors despite it not being something they had to face in the first half of the series.

“Look, we’ve been expecting it” Taurua said. “We’ve been talking about it everyday, every time we know what that physicality is like and we’d been expecting it for a while so this is probably the first time we’ve felt the ferocity of it, and once again being at home as well sort of adds that impetuous to it.

“I don’t want to blame the umpires, I don’t want to get into that, because there were moments where we could have done something with the ball, but we didn’t. These are the things that I think the Diamonds are renowned for is that physical one-on-one and our ability to rise is a challenge for us.”

Taurua was also clear about where her focus would lie in the short turnaround between Wednesday night’s clash and the final clash of the series on the Gold Coast on Sunday.

“I guess the first thing is all we need is a win,” Taurua said. “We’ve got to keep it in context around things. In saying that, look, they need a win too, so that’s what it’s all about, and I think first thing is that is why Constellation Cup is such an awesome competition to be a part of. We’ve got a lot of things to work on and we’ve only got a couple of days.

Definitely being able to execute under pressure is one thing, especially that man-on-man, really hard. We’ll have another look defensively, our style is zone, or play the space so we don’t get caught up in running one on one, but I feel tonight we did, so we have to come back to what we do well and maybe a bit more mobility and maybe also looking at a few combinations to see if we can shut it down.”