Ellie Cardwell has one of the most expressive faces in netball. You can tell when England’s goal shooter is up, because her grin has the wattage of a battleship’s searchlight and at the start of this World Cup final she seemed to encapsulate her team’s confidence and joie de jouer. She sunk a shot from halfway back in the circle, and gestured to the crowd to make some noise. A lightning three-pass move left her in empty space under the net – the goal went in and she stuck two thumbs high in the air.
So much had happened in English netball in the past three days that the Roses might easily have collapsed under the weight of history. On Friday they beat Australia for the first time at this tournament, on Saturday they overcame the reigning champions to reach their first final. They couldn’t secure their first title against the world No 1 side, but they still played with the adventure and spirit that brought them, unbeaten, to this point.
To call the second quarter breathless would be an insult to the term. There were periods where play was moving so fast up and down the court that it was genuinely hard to find time to inhale. Call logs at NHS 111 almost certainly registered novice netball watchers turning blue and passing out in front of their screens.
Australia, 13-13 at the first break, had come back out with a plan. That plan was to ratchet up the ball speed until the England defence saw nothing but a blur. In the resulting pinball period, the ball rebounded off everything from hands to feet to torsos. Sometimes the lie favoured England, other times less so.
Imogen Allison, who has been one of England’s top intercepters throughout this competition, seemed to be everywhere all at once, hooking and clawing back balls from both sidelines. One of her efforts left three players scrabbling around on the ground like pigeons fighting over a crust.
But if you wanted to weigh how England were doing, you looked to Cardwell. Australia’s defenders were putting the heavy on England’s shooters in the circle and the pressure was starting to tell. Nine minutes in, Cardwell made her first miss. Thousands of people simultaneously took in much-needed oxygen in the form of a sharp inhale. An immediate second chance: another goal, another grin. England had lost ground but it wasn’t fatal and Cardwell stole one back in the final second before the half-time whistle.
A four-goal deficit was no cause for panic – this team had come back from six behind against the same opponents just three days earlier. In that game, Fran Williams had been the hero, sent into battle at the crucial moments to disrupt the enemy with her stealth capabilities and her telescopic arms. There are times, mid-steal, when you swear you could count eight of them; perhaps there’s octopus DNA in her genes.
Williams’s interventions in the previous Australia game and the semi-final against New Zealand are enough to have earned her the nickname “Golden Hand” in South Africa. What England needed on this occasion was the Hand of God and that, Williams could not provide. For once, coach Jess Thirlby’s substitutions did not pay off and Funmi Fadoju, who took Geva Mentor’s place at the start of the third quarter, was soon back on the bench when England began shipping goals.
By contrast, Australia’s impact players left craters: Sarah Klau ran on to the court and immediately and audaciously snatched the ball in front of Helen Housby’s face. Housby, known for her wily ability to take an inch and gain a foot, looked positively beaten up by the Australian defence in this game. Much has been talked of her connection with Cardwell in the circle, but Klau, Jo Weston and Courtney Bruce drove a wedge between them here with their relentless physicality.
Cardwell still carried on doing Cardwell things, plucking the ball from the air side-arm, or grabbing space with her superhero lands – one knee bent, one leg outstretched like Ironman returning to earth. Ten minutes into the third quarter a one-handed catch in the circle threw her off-balance and sent her toppling over the baseline. Arabesque-ing on one leg like an Edgar Degas statue, she still found twist and power enough to send the ball through the net before she landed out.
When they have got over the disappointment of the result, there will be plenty for England to savour from a campaign in which they played eight, won seven. The fact they they came so close to the title – against a team who, in the past 18 months alone, knocked them out of the Commonwealth Games, beat them in the Quad Series and won their bilaterals 3-0 – speaks volumes. As Australia’s 10-goal lead extended across the final 15 minutes, Cardwell’s face grew tired and beaten. The rest of her, however, never gave up.
