England and Australia set for epic final showdown at Netball World Cup

Eleven-time world champions Australia and first-time finalist England will face off in Sunday’s final of the Netball World Cup 2023 in Cape Town.

The English Roses shocked defending champions New Zealand 46-40 in the first semifinal and the Australian Diamonds beat Jamaica 57-54 in a tightly-contested second semifinal.

The Roses’ appearance in Sunday’s final means that they are only the fourth team behind New Zealand, Australia and South Africa to advance to the final in the history of the World Cup. Australia, meanwhile, are appearing in their ninth consecutive World Cup final.

England coach Jess Thirlby said she was thoroughly pleased with what her team managed to achieve.

“I think to win in a game in that way is the most satisfying feeling. I think the journey we’ve been on is how to manage ourselves through momentum and against the best teams playing at their best. Today to go goal for goal, for as long as we did, what a fantastic showcase for both teams. Mentally we stayed with it and to end a game of that nature with a run of six just goes to tell you, you just have to stay in the game.

“When I got the job in August 2019, one of the things I said was I want to help take us where no Roses team has gone before and that for us has been a World Cup final. So it has been four years in the making and so it feels brilliant.”

England captain Layla Guscoth said their focus pulled them through.

“On Thursday we were obviously bussing to have beaten Australia but we really quickly shifted our mindset to thinking about today because that was nothing if we couldn’t back it up today. We want a gold medal, we are happy to be in the final and we want to win. We’ll be focussing on what we've done to get us to this point and what we need to get over that line tomorrow as well.”

New Zealand captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio said it was a tough loss.

“It’s real devastating for us I think, we are feeling real heartbroken as well. We were really in it for three quarters, and we really stood up. I really thought we had our chances, I guess it’s a bit of the way it goes but we have to get up again, you know, we have to get up again tomorrow and find a way. We’ve got a lot of heart left and we are not done yet, we have another game.”

Australia coach Stacey Marinkovich said her team knew what was required in order to beat a fired-up Jamaica.

“You don’t need to do much to motivate this group, they are absolutely professional in what they do. It’s been building, we’ve had bits and pieces of it through the tournament but to play Jamaica you needed it for 60 minutes, and I guess it was more around the commitment. I thought everyone that came on did what they needed to do. It was regrouping and getting focused on what we look like when we are playing well.”

Jamaica captain Jhaniele Fowler said the loss against the Diamands was devastating.

“We had amazing wins but this loss is definitely devastating as we wanted to make it to the final but unfortunately we didn’t. But kudos to my girls, they worked really hard to get here. We just fell short a little bit which is disappointing, but we put it all out on court.

“That’s the thing with this tournament, if you still have a chance you kind of have to bin the loss so that you are in the mindset to go onto the next. So if we stay in this loss too long, we will lose out on this other bronze medal as well so it makes no sense to go deep into this rabbit hole, just like move on and head back out on court tomorrow.”

In the other matches of the day, Wales beat Scotland 57-42 to claim ninth position while Fiji beat Trinidad and Tobago 71-39 to claim the 11th spot.