Tuesday 11 August 2015 11:06, UK
Former international and Loughborough Lightning head coach Karen Atkinson believes England can beat the Australian Diamonds at the Netball World Cup on Tuesday, if they get off to a strong start.
Tracey Neville's team meet the world No 1 side earlier than expected in the competition after the Diamonds lost to rivals New Zealand on Sunday. Because of that loss, the host nation finished second in their preliminary pool and now face third-ranked England in their first match of the qualifiers.
Atkinson, who made 122 appearances for England, told Sky Sports that the Roses can beat the reigning champions if they got off to a good start.
"I've been really impressed with their [England] performances so far, I think they've been fairly consistent," said Atkinson.
"Those two games against Scotland and Samoa were fairly straight forward and they looked good and consistent. The real positive was getting that psychological win over Jamaica.
"During that game I was really impressed by Serena Guthrie at Wing Defence. I thought she was outstanding.
"The Aussies look a little bit shaky and below par and I was really impressed with New Zealand at the weekend.
"England have to dominate the game early and if they do they can go on and win. If they get themselves on the back foot it's going to be tough. They play off confidence and they need to feel all the way through the game that they can take it, so chasing early is not going to go in our favour.
"If we get a really good start and we're completely in the game by half-time we've got the players to win it.
"It will really exciting to see how the squad go against Australia. It's going to be a massive game to see whether they've got the psychological ability to deal with the pressure of the world number one side, which has not always been the case in the past."
Watch England v Australia at the Netball World Cup live on Sky Sports 4 from 11:15am on Tuesday August 11.
