After a challenging second test at the Copper Box on Friday, Tracey Neville and the Roses reflected after the game on where England fell short and how that will be combatted in tonight's final game.
Tracey Neville
"The aim of this Test Series was about blooding youngsters and one of the things over the last four years that we’ve not got are these players gaining that crucial international experience. Obviously we were only two down at half-time and we’ve suffered an injury. I’ve got some aims to come out with in this series – obviously for the win but we have to say ‘well how many of these players have played in an international match against the world’s best?’ That was something that was really exciting tonight.
We had 75% of the players removed after the World Cup through either retirement or medical reasons. You’re always going to get that at the start of a four-year cycle. What we didn’t have were players who were competing for those places and we didn’t have that blood underneath and if I do only one thing while I’m in post, it will be to get that continuous pathway throughout our system.
I said to the young ones: ‘you’re going to go through a rollercoaster during these games, but it’s how you come out of it that will make you bigger and better.' That’s what happened – there were times when they were down, there were times when they were up, and it’s about them coming up.
‘I was really happy with Jodie, I was happy with Laura Malcolm and I was happy with Natalie Haythornthwaite – there were times where I thought ‘do I bring them off?’ But then I thought ‘if you’re going to learn and you want to learn with the best then you need to stay on and make improvements.’ That’s what we really saw from them."
Natalie Haythornthwaite
"That was the first time I’ve ever played against Australia, I absolutely loved being given the opportunity and the girls did such a good job in the first half. Obviously we fell a bit short in the third quarter and a few errors crept in but I just took the opportunity.
There were moments of greatness and we put out some good play, and then there were moments of hesitation with too many errors so we need to clear them up, do some video work and put the wrongs right for Sunday. I still want to beat the Aussies so we’ll do everything we can away from the court to make that happen in the final game."
Jade Clarke
"I thought the young players did us proud, Jodie Gibson has got huge flare and she’s so good attacking down the court and Nat Haythornthwaite is definitely one for the future.
We expect the best from all our players, we don’t wrap them up in cotton wool, we expect them to do their job, so Tracey was really clear about all the jobs that we were doing and that we had to step up, believe we could do it and move up a gear.
We’re disappointed but the good thing is that we’ve got another match to prove ourselves"
The final match of the Series takes place at a sold-out Copper Box Arena tonight but you can still catch the action live, exclusively on Sky Sports 3 from 6pm.
If you don’t have a Sky Sports subscription but want to watch England take on the Diamonds this weekend, you can buy a Now TV day pass from just £6.99.
