Netball Super League | Stars’ Head Coach hoping home crowd will boost team

Severn Stars’ Head Coach, Sam Bird, says they will need the home crowd to get behind them this weekend as they face Benecos Mavericks.

After a frustrating loss on Bank Holiday Monday, the team has regrouped, but Bird said the crowd could play their part as they go up against the Vitality Netball Superleague’s third placed side at the University of Worcester Arena this Saturday (May 12, 6pm).

“I’m looking forward to the game in that we can improve from our previous performance,” she said. “It’s always great playing at home, we enjoy our home crowd. We had a massive home crowd last time; it was over 1,000 people, so we need their support again.

“Mavericks are a great side with lots of flair and they’re an exciting team, so I think it will make for a great match and we’re up for a good performance.”

Bird was left frustrated by the match on Monday (May 7), in which away side Stars, a joint franchise between the University of Worcester and University of Gloucestershire, lost to fourth placed Team Bath 51-35.

Prior to the game, Bird had called for her team to be more clinical in possession and to look after the ball better, but she said the team had proved “only clinical in patches”. After an impressive second quarter, in which they pegged their hosts back by two goals to come within three, the third quarter saw Bath gain an 11-goal lead that Stars could not recover from. Bird said that small individual errors had had a cumulative effect in the match and that Stars had struggled to cope with the physicality of the Team Bath defence.

This weekend, she says she wants to see greater consistency from her side.

“Training has focussed on the positive aspects of what we can deliver as a squad and developing those positives for longer periods of time during the match,” she said. “We will be looking to playing to our strengths and cutting down the chances for errors to occur. Again I have been impressed with the girls’ attitude at training and this effort will pay dividends in terms of performance over the next few matches.”

For tickets visit www.severnstars.co.uk.

Photo credit: Lauren Jack