Northants JMs vs. Bluetits

Northants JMs had high hopes in this week’s East Midlands Netball Regional League Division 1 game against Leicestershire’s Bluetits (07/10/12), especially as JMs’ Fiona Pritchett, Honor de Winton and Annie Bolle-Jones were all making their first appearances for the club this season.

JMs' first quarter started rather slowly, with a number of passes and shots lacking their usual accuracy. This gave Bluetits all of the ammunition they needed to stride into a seven-goal lead at quarter time, with a score line of 14-21.

Substitutions were made by Northants JMs with Poole coming on at Wing Defence and Bolle-Jones at Goal Defence.

Excellent work by Chantee Lewis and Bolle-Jones meant JMs’ interception and turnover rates were much higher in the second quarter. In fact, JMs’ overall play resulted in a very respectable second quarter score line of 12-14, meaning a half time score 26-35 in Bluetits’ favour.

JMs decided to make more changes for the third quarter, with Elisa Hayden coming on at Wing Defence and Fay Anderson (previously Centre) swapping positions with Pritchett (previously Wing Attack). A much-improved JMs team was witnessed during these 15 minutes and the team got within a six-goal margin during this quarter. However, some of JMs’ turnovers were not always converted into goals and Bluetits fought back to end the quarter 35-45 ahead.

The last quarter brought final changes to JMs’ line-up with Lou Tunnicliff coming on at Wing Defence, Hayden moving to Goal Defence and Bolle-Jones moving to Goal Keeper. At times JMs showed some delightful play in attack during this period, although the team knew that stealing a 10-goal lead from Bluetits was always going to be a tough ask. However with guts and determination, JMs pulled a win out of this quarter at 10-9, meaning a final score of 44-53.

Northants JMs’ Player of the Match went to Annie Bolle-Jones.