Australia's winning pedigree shines through in late Quad Series final victory over England

Australia 58 England 46

For all that her side are reigning Commonwealth champions and possess arguably the best squad in world netball, England head coach Jess Thirlby had been honest in her assessment ahead of this Quad Series final against Australia when admitting “we are trying to disrupt the world order of netball here”.

There is good reason why Australia are ranked world No 1 and have now won six of the seven editions of this tournament. At the most pressurised moment it showed.

When the two sides met in Tuesday’s meaningless group stage match, England were able to come from six goals behind to snatch a last-second draw. As the clock ticked down in Wednesday’s rematch, they were considerably too far out of reach to entertain any thoughts of similar drama.

Having led for almost the entire game and taken a narrow one-goal lead into the last quarter, England capitulated in quite disastrous fashion, losing the final quarter 18-5. At one stage, Australia sank seven unanswered goals, eventually triumphing 58-46.

“Of course it’s going to hurt but we know that we’re better than that,” said Thirlby. “I thought it was great that we took the lead and had them chasing us for the majority of the game. When you go down in that nature in the last 15 minutes, it’s not how you would choose to do it.

“I think we have learned what it takes to beat Australia. Huge credit to them, they went up another gear and we just fell apart a little bit, which is disappointing, and it will hurt. But it’s not the 15 minutes we need to focus on. We shouldn’t afford the last 15 minutes to define how well we’ve done.”

While both teams had shuffled their packs before and during Tuesday’s warm-up, there was no messing around here, with three changes apiece for this winner-takes-all affair.

Having been forced to recover from eight- and six-goal deficits in their last two matches, Thirlby had insisted pride at her team’s tenacity was outweighed by a desire to stop having to chase games. Her mixed emotions post-match came from the team fulfilling that wish for so long, and yet ultimately succumbing to a heavy defeat. Perhaps they thrive on being the hunters rather than the hunted.

“Maybe,” she responded, when that theory was put to her. “I felt like we held on very well for 45 minutes; they kept on coming back at us and we responded accordingly.

“We’ve got to be good at both. We have to find a way of being secure leading, and then we can be in that position and know what we are doing. I think we’re on a journey.”

Where Tuesday’s match had been notable for its scrappiness, this game was remarkable for the exemplary level of skills on show from both teams. Every interception was expertly gained rather than foolishly gifted, and the shooting success for both sides was up there with the very best.

Having seized an early two-goal lead after the first quarter, England maintained it at half-time, with Australia forced to make multiple defensive changes in a bid to halt the irrepressible Eleanor Cardwell. It had little effect until the final quarter when everything fell apart so dramatically.

Desperate to halt the slide, Thirlby made three quick substitutions with nine minutes to go, but to no avail as the Australians ran riot.

If England retain their Commonwealth title in Birmingham this summer, this defeat will be long forgotten. But that is scant solace in the here and now.