Of course, when I left New Zealand on Monday the joking had changed and was different to when I arrived; thanks to the Thunderbirds it was now one for one!

The Magic v Thunderbirds clash on Sunday at Mystery Creek was a game that had the Thunderbirds’ name all over it right from the outset. The pressure through the midcourt from both teams was fantastic, real ‘pressure netball’, but the Thunderbirds came out on top by having far more possession of the ball and making far fewer turnovers.

The Thunderbirds have grown over the past two years, building the team, and are certainly peaking at the right time. They are carrying no passengers. Like all Australian ANZ teams they train up to ten sessions per week and at least 3-4 of those sessions are on-court sessions. Magic, on the other hand – if the rumours are right – only have one on-court training session per week and have to train in their own area. The media have asked me where I thought the Magic failed: it seemed to me that the connection between the seven on court hadn’t gelled over the past four weeks and as a result their play looked fragmented and patchy – which might have been the reason for the high turnovers they produced in the game. If the rumour is true, I don’t believe you can win this ANZ competition on limited court sessions.

So, it’s a Vixens v Thunderbirds final. The stats favour the Vixens, according to the Official Stats received over the season, but I would be throwing away any thought that this will be an advantage in this game – tear them up now!

Many of the Vixens have been playing together for the past 7-10 years, while five of the seven starters on court – McMahon, Chokljat, Hallinan, Corletto and Chatfield (Corletto of course had one year with Kestrels) – have played and won many, many Grand Finals together. In the Thunderbirds starting line-up, Nat von Bertouch and Natalie Medhurst go back 5-6 years while the rest of the starting seven – Gerrard, Mentor, Beveridge and Beaton – are into year two and Sutton year one, but as I have mentioned, throw away the stats. This game will be as tactical as any game you will have seen through the ANZ Championship, with the coaching staff from both camps trying to out-think the other and player ability to counter-act one another.

The match-up for me will be McMahon v Gerrard but when you look over the court match-ups are everywhere and there’s nothing worth more than this day!

There’s probably nobody that’s ever coached netball that just loves the game more than I do. I mean I really love this game.