Steel captain Jodi Brown was sporting a few new bruises after a physical encounter with the West Coast Fever at the Lion Foundation Arena on Saturday afternoon.
Steel v Fever
The scores
Fever 56
Caitlin Bassett 49 from 55, Catherine Cox 7/12
Steel 53
Donna Wilkins 26/28, Jodi Brown 27/37
Quarter 15-11, halftime 28-22 third quarter 40-41
All the bump and grind got her thinking. She was careful not to sound bitter, as the West Coast Fever deserved its 56-53 win after all.
But the former Silver Fern shooter believes crafty coach Norma Plummer paved the way her side's combative approach with comments in the media, suggesting the officials went easy on the Northern Mystics while ruling with an iron fist down the other end.
"It shows you what a week of moaning about the umpires can do for your team," Brown said moments after the match.
"You can't say it didn't have an affect [on the umpires]. All the hype around this match has been about Norma and the umpires the whole week, so for umpires to say they weren't affected is rubbish, basically."
The tone was set in the opening moments of the game when goal keep Susan Fuhrmann almost tackled Brown and wore an accidental elbow in the face for her trouble. The game seemed to get more physical as it went on.
Steel midcourter Phillipa Finch's ongoing battle with Ashleigh Brazill got heated at times, and there were some huge collisions.
"Sometimes it was over the top," Brown said. "But then sometimes there was nothing there to be caught for, so as a player you are kind of in two minds and it plays on your mind.
You don't know whether people will get called for the contact or not. It had an impact on the game and we were the team which did not handle it the best."
In saying that, Brown thought victory slipped away because there were too many turnovers at the attack end.
Plummer, for her part, believed the match was no more physical than any other game these days.
"I think that is normal netball in today's game," she said.
"Everybody is trying for the ball, and we play a man-to-man game whereas [New Zealand teams] play a zone. But I thought our players were off the player an awful lot today. Our penalty count would have been down."
Ultimately, Fever goal shoot Caitlin Bassett was the difference between the two sides.
The 1.92m shooter drilled 49 of her 55 attempts to help seal the thrilling win.
"Oh really," she said when told she had almost posted a half century.
"I don't keep count of those sort of things. I only look at the scoreboard to see if we are winning."
The Perth-based side has struggled to win in New Zealand, so the win is huge in the context of its season.
"It is really exciting for us to have a win here. It is a bit of a confidence boast.
"We probably should have won against the Mystics the other day, so to pull through and get a win, especially when it is tight, is really good for us," Bassett said.
The Steel trailed for most of the match but outscored its opponent 19-12 in the third quarter to set up a thrilling finish.
The lead changed hands three times in the first 10min of the final period but the Fever regained it with 5min remaining and held its nerve.
The Steel has slipped to two wins from four matches and has a bye this week.
