The Tall Ferns were unable to generate a win on the opening night of the 2015 William Jones Cup in Taiwan on Monday night going down 77-66 against Chinese Taipei B. The situation looked positive for New Zealand entering the final period as they held a 52-50 advantage but gave up 27 points in the final quarter.
The first starting five of the international season included 19 year old forward Penina Davidson alongside seasoned campaigners Lisa Wallbutton, Micaela Cocks, Natalie Taylor and Samara Gallaher.
The Tall Ferns began the game promisingly opening up an early 6-0 lead thanks to baskets from Cocks and Davidson. The home side then embarked on a 15-0 run capitalising on a series of sloppy turnovers from the Tall Ferns.
Lisa Wallbutton broke the Taipei run and further scores from Megan Craig and Jordan Hunter eased the Kiwis back into the contest trailing 19-12 at quarter time.
The Tall Ferns again started the quarter with a 6-0 run, a long two from Taylor reducing the deficit to a single point, 18-19. As in the first quarter Taipei replied strongly forging a 26-18 advantage.
Chevannah Paalvast scored the first triple of the game for the Tall Ferns, that basket heralding a barrage of three’s as Hunter, Natalie Taylor and Cocks twice, knocked down shots from behind the three point arc to propel the Tall Ferns to a handy 37-33 half-time advantage. YC Chen led the Chinese Tapei offence with 15 points.
The Tall Ferns forwards came to the fore in the third quarter as Wallbutton, Jess Bygate and Davidson engineered the bulk of the scoring in the period. A neat touch pass assist by Wallbutton to Bygate being the prominent moment of quarter three.
The Tall Ferns only arrived in Taiwan 26 hours before this encounter and the final period seemed a bridge too far for Kennedy Kereama’s team. They gave up a 10-0 run to open the stanza although two quick baskets from the tireless Wallbutton and a coast to coast effort from Cocks kept the Kiwis in contention – trailing 60-58 with 6:30 to play. That was as close as it got as Chinese Taipei B sealed the game with three triples in as many minutes against a tiring New Zealand defence.
Assistant coach Aik Ho was philosophical after the game. “We dominated the rebounding count (45-28) but couldn’t convert that superiority into points. At the defensive end our ‘bigs’ struggled to contain the smaller, quicker Chinese Taipei players.”
Wallbutton was the pick of the Kiwi players securing a double double of 12 points and 11 rebounds, including 7 off the offensive glass. Davidson and Cocks also collected a dozen points but the three point shooting, just 5 from 16 converted, will be a cause for concern for the coaching staff. Chun Cheng Yu scored 19 points for the hosts missing just two of ten scoring attempts.
Cocks for her part was extremely pleased with the team’s rebounding at both ends of the court but admitted there was work to be done.”It never feels good to lose but we can learn a lot from the loss. We have to get better defensively and also look after the ball.
Guard Natalie Taylor was looking at the bigger picture.
“We are disappointed with the loss but see this as building the team for the Oceania Championships and with it being our first hit out we’ve identified areas we can fix”.
