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Kia ora, good evening, and welcome to Newshub's live updates of New Zealand's third Netball World Cup encounter against Singapore in Cape Town.
After a hard-fought win over Uganda just a day ago, the Silver Ferns face a Singapore team still searching for their first.
The Asian outfit are coming off a 13-goal defeat to Trinidad and Tobago, a side New Zealand dismantled in their tournament opener.
Join us at 9pm for the start of the match.
TAB odds: New Zealand $1.001, Singapore $101
Squads:
New Zealand: Ameliaranne Ekenasio, Grace Nweke, Te Paea Selby-Rickit, Maia Wilson, Gina Crampton, Maddy Gordon, Kate Heffernan, Whitney Souness, Karin Burger, Kelly Jury, Phoenix Karaka, Jane Watson
Singapore: Toh Kai Wei, Khor Ting Fang, Aqilah Andin, Amandeep Kaur, Angelina Lim, Goh, Wei Ping, Jamie Lim, Kimberly Lim, Rachel Ling, Reena Manogaran, Tan Yi Jie, Yew Shu Ning
Silver Ferns battle to hard-fought World Cup win against plucky underdogs Uganda
The Silver Ferns have tussled to a tightly contested 54-44 win over Uganda in their second Pool D game at the Netball World Cup in Cape Town on Saturday.
In stark contrast to their crushing victory over Trinidad and Tobago 24 hours earlier, the Ferns were made to work hard against the Africans, who showed no signs of intimidation against the defending champions.
They pushed the New Zealanders surprisingly close at last year's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, before falling to a 13-goal defeat. They clearly took plenty of confidence from that experience to South Africa, as they made the Kiwis fight for every inch of the Cape Town International Centre court.
The combative She-Cranes posed problems at both ends of the court to provide the kind of test coach Dame Noeline Taurua would have appreciated, as she eyes the later stages of the tournament.
Defender Phoenix Karaka was the stand-out for the Ferns, wreaking havoc inside the circle to restrict the Ugandan shooters to just a 76-percent success rate to earn MVP honours.
The NZ attack had their radars well tuned, with just four total misses among Grace Nweke (15/16), Ameliaranne Ekenasio (12/12), Maia Wilson (10/11), Te Paea Selby Rickit (17/19).
"We knew it was going to be a game where we’d have to hold on and grind to stay in it until we could hopefully pull away towards the end," Silver Ferns captain Ekenasio said.
"Uganda are a quality team and we knew that they were going to bring it and that's exactly what they did today."
The first quarter was a closely contested affair, as the Ugandans came out of the gates with their trademark physicality to finish just two goals shy of the Kiwis.
That defensive tussle continued into the second quarter, with the Ferns heading into the halftime break with a precarious 25-21 lead.
The teams traded blows through the early stages of the third quarter, before the Ferns gradually edged away from their opponents with their increased intensity - as well as the addition of some of their more experienced substitutes - to close with a six-goal advantage.
Dame Noeline's notoriously high fitness standards paid dividends in the final quarter, with the New Zealanders able to gain some breathing room and eventually close out the tiring Ugandans with relative comfort.
