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NC2015 Match Report: Singapore Vs Northern Ireland

The last match of the day started off with a fast-paced game which ended in Northern Ireland defeating Singapore 46-35.

Singapore came on court a different team from yesterday’s game with both defence and attack working hand-in-hand to bring the ball downcourt. A crucial interception by the home team’s Premila Hirubalan led to Singapore’s first goal. Starting off on the right foot definitely paid off as the host nation achieved a score lead just minutes into the game against the competition’s most formidable opponents.

Despite Singapore’s strong start, Northern Ireland quickly gained momentum with several miscommunication between the home team’s circle defence leaving Northern Ireland’s stalwart shooter Kyla Bowman wide open. The Irish midcourt defence proved nearly impenetrable as Singapore struggled to bring the ball down. Luckily for them, a string of unforced errors by Northern Ireland meant that their teams could recoup their losses.

The second quarter saw Kimberly Lim come on as WA for Singapore with no changes for Northern Ireland. The shift was a welcomed move as Singapore was able to advance the ball with the game’s highest number of goal attempts in one quarter (14 attempts). A last minute change saw Chen Lili brought on court as Goal Shooter three minutes to the end of the second quarter. With Lili on board, Singapore was able to maintain their score line to finish the quarter at 10-11. 

In the third quarter, both teams came on strong, putting up a close fight. The score line remained neck-to-neck till 7 all. Singapore’s circle defence put fierce pressure on Northern Ireland’s GS Kyla Bowman and GA Sarah Montgomery, evident in the visiting team’s lowest shooting accuracy of 52% among the quarters. But the defence was not enough for Northern Ireland’s Kyla Bowman who then proceeded to widen the score line by a further 6 goals to bring the quarter’s final score to 13-7.

Singapore, unfazed with the current score, came storming back to claim the first goal in the final quarter with Yasmin Ho as GS. Her introduction reaped rewards as she proceeded to score 9 of the nation’s 11 goals with a 100% shooting accuracy. Their strong performance proved insufficient to bounce back from the previous quarters’ errors and Northern Ireland swooped the win with a final score of 46-35.

Score

Singapore vs Northern Ireland 
Q1: 7 – 11
Q2: 17 – 22 (10 – 11)
Q3: 24 – 35 (7 – 13)
Q4: 35 – 46 (11 – 11)


Quote from Head Coaches

Julie Kimber, Northern Ireland Head Coach

The girls worked hard and played extremely well. The team played strategically, as planned. We made a few changes to the team, which worked well for this match.
The shooting statistics needs to be improved and the team needs to gain possession of the ball more often. We will have to review this match as the team and plan out a strategy for the upcoming matches.
The two upcoming matches are chances to prepare the players for final matches. We intend to play new players and try new combinations that haven’t been able to play so far.

Ruth Aitken, Singapore Head Coach

We’re still in the rusty stage, we made a lot of changes today, it was good to get some new faces today on court but we didn’t get the result we would’ve liked to. I think we lacked the connections on our attack i think that certainly Northern Ireland did a really good job today and we have to give credit to them, they made it really hard for us so for us to get our rhythm on attack was a real challenge.

It was good to see Parveen’s first match at Nations Cup level, we took the bull by the horns and brought Li Li on, and I thought she did a fine job. The trouble we had when she came on was getting the ball to her because their mid-court defenders did a great job on that, they played very well. But it was nice for us to have a look at that and I thought Yasmin came on very well again.

It’s very disappointing, it’s not where we want to be but it’s happened so we’ve got to look at things and try to do better tomorrow. We felt the changes were to our benefit, you’ve got different things available to you and when the situation calls for it you’ve got to use them, you’ve got to back your players.

Quote from Team Captains

Gemma Gibey, Northern Ireland Captain

It was a good game overall. We won each quarter by a fine margin but eventually emerged as winners. Singapore’s team is very athletic, especially in their defence.
We will prepare for the upcoming games by looking back on today’s game and focus on what to improve and new strategies.

Micky Lin Qingyi, Singapore Captain

I think it was a tough game for the ladies tonight and we need to clean up our act a little bit more going into the next game. We have a couple more games to go, it’s always about what we’ve done well, reviewing it and seeking to improve the next game. We’ll go back and analyse Chinese Taipei, and work on things from there.