P.I.C. coach certain of retaining title

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 40

P.I.C. coach certain of retaining title

PA Wellington The Pacific Island Church coach, Margharet Matenga, is confident her team can retain its national league netball title when competition starts in Auckland today. In an expanded finals format, P.LC. will meet the league winner, Collegiate, today to decide the first finalist.

In a softball-type twolife system, the finals this year include the first four teams in the league, rather than a straight play-off between the top two as before.

Collegiate (Auckland) and P.1.C., the top two finishers in the league, will play one semi-final

with the winner going directly to the final. College Rifles, of Auckland, and Verdettes (Hamilton) will play the other semi-final. The loser will automatically drop out of title contention and the winner will play the loser of the CollegiateP.I.C. encounter to determine the second finalist.

Collegiate must start as favourite after going through the round robin section of play without defeat and knowing it has already beaten Wellington’s P.LC. “I still think we are the better team out of the four,” the former New Zealand shooting star Matenga said, “and we still

haven’t played up to our full potential.”

Confident the team would peak for the finals, Matenga said she was happy with the way the team had improved throughout the round robin section of play. “We are strong at both ends of the court and if the centre court can link these ends and we play as a team, we can win the title,” she said.

The team had worked out its problems after suffering a 48-39 defeat to Collegiate in the preliminary rounds, Matenga said. Matenga conceded that skilful New Zealand representative, Rita Fatialofa, was the key.