Stormy Lightning ready to strike in the top end

Sunny skies are forecast for Darwin this weekend but a storm is brewing at the Territory Netball Stadium as the Sunshine Coast Lightning look to strike back against the Thunderbirds in the top end on Saturday.

The two-time reigning premiers head to the Northern Territory capital still stinging from their round six loss to the Melbourne Vixens.

Lightning Coach Noeline Taurua said her side was raring to go after a torrid week on the training court.

“Thunderbirds is a big game for us – I think for both teams heading into Darwin,” she said.

“The type of errors in regards to drop ball, those sort of things (last week), was unacceptable at this level and I feel there’s areas we can improve on in that.”

One shining light from last weekend’s 11 goal loss to the Vixens was the Lightning’s bench, with three versatile and game-ready options available in Jacqui Russell, Annika Lee-Jones and Cara Koenen.

“I think in the last quarter when our bench players did get on it gave them the opportunity, so that may fire things up going into the next game against Thunderbirds,” Taurua said.

Goal Shooter Cara Koenen said the Thunderbirds couldn’t be taken lightly, despite only notching their first win in the Suncorp Super Netball a fortnight ago.

“Where they’re sitting on the table means they’re going to leave nothing to chance, they are going to throw everything at us,” Koenen said.

“They want that win on the board, they will definitely come at us nice and hard so we’ll be looking forward to another tough, physical game again this weekend.

“We’ll be looking at some really tall defenders again like the Vixens had last weekend, so some big hands over and we’ll just have to be really smart with the ball in the attack end being able to work it in nice and close to the post for our shooters.”

Saturday’s match starts at 2:30pm and will be broadcast live into the Sunshine Coast on the Nine Network.