Housby to curb Pretorius netball threat

NSW Swifts England shooter Helen Housby plans to keep moving in a bid to counter the threat of Sunshine Coast's South African intercept queen Karla Pretorius in Saturday's Super Netball major semi-final.

Pretorius has the second highest tally of intercepts this season, five behind Shamera Sterling, whose Adelaide team didn't make the last four

She snaffled six intercepts in both of Lightning's regular season two-goal wins over Swifts.

'"I think she's the best goal defender in the world at the minute and I think it's pretty hard to argue against that fact," said Housby, who made 24 of her 26 shots in the Swifts first match against Lightning but missed the second through injury.

"I feel like she gets a lot of intercepts in small spaces of time and I think it's when the opposition team relaxes a little bit and they don't stick to their game plans and she's very good at picking up loose balls and hunting around.

"It's not giving her that ability and playing a strict tight from of netball hat doesn''t allow her to intercept."

Asked what she can do as Pretorius's likely opponent to quell her influence, Housby said: "I've got to keep moving, to not stop on the ball and make myself a continuous option.

"It's when quite often the goal attacks don't make themselves an option is when she feels like she has the ability to drop off her player and hunt

"A lot of the intercepts that she gets she's getting on other players and it's not necessarily all on the goal attack because she has an ability to roam around.

"I think keeping her busy keeping her one-on-one in the circle with our shooter will put us in good stead.''

Pretorius said intercepts were a bonus and she concentrated on doing the basics well and benefited from the collective efforts of her teammates.

"I'm not really measuring my performance on just intercepts," Pretorius told AAP.

She has plenty of respect for Housby.

"What makes Helen great is she's real consistent in her performance and she's one of the toughest goal attacks to come up against," Pretorius said.

"'She plays a massive role in that team, so I definitely know I've got my work cut out for me but I'm excited for the challenge and looking forward to it."