Sunshine Coast Lightning bolt into Super Netball final
Netball's hottest player-coach partnership has steered the Sunshine Coast Lightning into a third straight Super Netball grand final after a 58-48 major semi-final win against the NSW Swifts.
Coach Noeline Taurua and captain Laura Langman have positioned their team within reach of a premiership hattrick which, if successful, would be the first secured in elite Australian domestic netball since the Swifts outfit of 2006-08.
New Zealand duo Taurua and Langman are at the peak of their powers, having lost just once across 15 domestic and World Cup games since the beginning of June.
Langman started the game with an intercept in the first minute and went on with the job.
"Right from the start when she got that turnover it looked like she was out for a game," Taurua said of her captain.
"I thought she was on fire in attack and defence."
Langman and her midcourt partner Laura Scherian moved with finely-tuned precision to break down the Swifts' resistance.
Shooters Cara Koenen (30/32) and Steph Wood (22/29) also kept the scoreboard ticking over to guide the Lightning straight into the Brisbane-hosted grand final on September 14.
"It's a sublime feeling and hard to express the actual words, apart from feeling really proud about our club," said Taurua, who leaves at the end of the campaign.
In a sign of the sport's increasing globalisation, only half the starting players across both teams were eligible for Australia.
Sunshine Coast Lightning players celebrate their emphatic victory. Getty
Two of the sport's international stars - Langman and the Swifts' English shooter Helen Housby - started brilliantly but the game swung wildly on the Kiwi's involvement.
Her battle with NSW centre Paige Hadley was pivotal, and by halftime Langman had 24 feeds, just one less than the combined tally of the Swifts' midcourt.
"We were only in it for half a game," lamented Swifts coach Briony Akle.
"Our team is really disappointed we didn't take it to them enough."
The Swifts have a second chance to make the decider providing they beat the winner of Sunday's elimination final between the Collingwood Magpies and Melbourne Vixens.
