Tracey Neville reflects on England's Quad Series defeat to New Zealand
Friday 10 February 2017 18:05, UK
England coach Tracey Neville believes England are heading in the right direction despite defeat to New Zealand on Thursday.
The Roses followed up extra-time victory over South Africa with a bruising defeat to the world's No 2 team New Zealand on Thursday and now face the best team in the world on Sunday.
Next up for England are Australia at Wembley's SSE Arena as the 2017 Quad Series comes to its conclusion and despite resting players, the Diamonds have won both of their games so far to stand on the brink of retaining their title.
Despite a series defeat to Jamaica before Christmas, Neville feels her squad are making progress as she looks to develop a pool of players capable of competing at next year's Commonwealth Games and the 2019 World Cup.
"What has been a real positive experience over these last six months is that players have been given the opportunity to play a whole 60 minutes knowing they have to perform against the world's best," Neville told Sky Sports.
"The exposure to Australia and New Zealand, they are starting to see what their match-ups are against particular players
"Players outside the programme have chosen not to be part and that has presented opportunities to other players and there have been some major successes.
"Nat Haythornthwaite has got stronger, Beth Cobden has got stronger so there have been positives with individual players.
"What I need to do now is collate those individual players going into Quad one next year and starting to cement a team, build relationships and a team to go into the Commonwealth Games."
Despite taking the positives, Neville admitted elements of the defeat to New Zealand left her disappointed, especially as lessons should have been learned from the Jamaica series defeat.
"We played well for 10 mins in the first, second and third quarters but we couldn't capitalise on it," she added.
"We have now seen it twice, against Jamaica and New Zealand where we have given up towards the end but pride should have got them through the game.
"We came out of the third quarter having drawn it going into the fourth on a real positive and I said we can nail that scoreline and they couldn't maintain the momentum.
"There were a lot of tired legs out but what disappoints is casualness. I said 'You are being beaten technically' and that disappoints as a coach."
Follow the conclusion of the Quad Series live on Sky Sports Mix on Sunday when England face Australia from 1pm with South Africa and New Zealand from 3.15pm
