After an inspirational pre-game build up reflecting on where we had come from and all the hurdles the team had overcome to be here, our starting eight took the court. Helen Abernethy was intended to start the game but unfortunately during training that morning she sprained her ankle and had to be rested. Starting in attack for the first game Simon Cooper (C), Neville Brooker, Alisha Muir, Natasha Van Vuuren and starting defence Spencer Te Pou, Alex Van Schaardenburg, Lucy Bolton, Alex Clark. Watching our team sing the national anthem before the game with such passion was an emotional sight for this physio.
As expected Taipei began strongly and asserted their dominance quickly through accurate passing and deadly shooting accuracy. By the time NZ was forced to use the first of our time outs half way through the first half, Taipei had reached a 12-2 lead. Following the time out we started to look a bit more settled on court and created more effective scoring opportunities. However, all too often aggressive team defence from Taipei forced our young team to shoot from 8-10m, allowing Taipei to go into half time 23-6 up.
At half time the typically passionate coach Mark Garrett asked the players to focus on maintaining our team structure to create better scoring opportunities. Jamie Osborne was substituted for Alisha Muir.
Early in the second half, Sarah Bateup substituted for Lucy Bolton and had an immediate impact on settling our attacking patterns. Taipei eased back on their defensive pressure allowing more freedom in our attack half. The difficulty came in maintaining possession as we would get one shot and Taipei would crash the hoop and control the rebound. With our shooting accuracy being lower than that of the opposition, Taipei continued to run away with the game. Bateup tweaked an ankle with 10 minutes to play and was subbed out of the game for Rosa Cooper. Towards the end of the game Neville Brooker capped off a solid shooting effort with his 3rd goal as the game ended at 43-11 in favour of the tournament favourites.
Coach Mark Garrett called the game "A valuable learning experience" and Simon Cooper, captaining his first game for his country "a huge honour, especially against one of the best teams in the world"
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