Australia 69-56 England: Diamonds end Roses’ hopes of historic series win with victory in deciding Test

by Admin
September 25, 2024

England’s hopes of securing a historic series win in Australia were ended by a 69-56 defeat to the hosts in the third Test.

Jess Thirlby’s side had forced a series decider courtesy of a 61-59 victory over the world champions in Sydney last Sunday, their first against the Diamonds on their own soil since the 2018 Commonwealth Games final.

But after establishing a 30-24 lead at half-time, Australia pushed on to secure a hard-fought 13-point win over the Roses and with it the series as well, although England head coach Thirlby found positives to take from it.

“The fact we found a way to level the series is progress for us,” Thirlby said. “We’ve been over here before and we didn’t do that last time.

“To find our best performance in that context was really important.

“I think we’ve been able to expose and broaden the experience across this group.

“I think we’ve got some information tactically about when we can hurt Aussie Diamonds and we can be more confident about those tactics working. Today, we just fell short of being able to implement them.”

Once again, Liv Tchine led the way for England with an impressive shooting record of 39 goals from 40 attempts.

But 43 goals from Australia’s Sophie Garbin, and 24 from player of the match and series Kiera Austin helped ensure the Diamonds would go on to underline their status as world No 1.

Despite the margin of defeat mirroring that of the opening game of the series, Thirlby saw plenty of improvement from her side.

“It feels different to Test 1 in the sense we kept ourselves with a foothold going into half-time,” Thirlby said.

“We played a bit to their strengths early on and were a bit slow to catch up in that space.

“It’s going to be a challenging one for us to reflect on because ultimately we couldn’t find enough ball and I think we were a little bit sloppy with some turnover early on in the game.

“Then when you’re not finding ball it compounds itself as the game goes on.”

England now head to New Zealand for another three-match series which starts on Sunday in Auckland, with all three Tests live on Sky Sports.