Australia and New Zealand enjoyed big wins but Northern Ireland suffered another devastating, close loss as the Vitality Netball World Cup moved into its second phase this morning.
The top teams from Preliminaries stage one have now been split into two groups of six, from which the top two in each will earn a semi-final spot.
The Diamonds and the Silver Ferns both wrapped up their fourth win of the tournament with considerable comfort, defeating Barbados (91-22) and Zimbabwe (79-36) respectively. For the Australians, this marked the second time in two days that they have reached 90 goals in a game, and they now have the top two highest scores in the tournament.
Elsewhere there was further disappointment for Northern Ireland, who went down 47-43 against Malawi, following their two-goal defeat to Zimbabwe yesterday.
Group E – made up of the four teams who finished bottom of the Preliminaries stage one groups – also got under way this morning, with Sri Lanka beating Singapore 88-50 in a game which saw Sri Lanka’s Tharjini Sivalingam record a tournament-high 76 goals in a single game.
Results for session 7 matches:
Zimbabwe 36-79 New Zealand (Group F)
Northern Ireland 43-47 Malawi (Group F)
Australia 91-22 Barbados (Group F)
Sri Lanka 88-50 Singapore (Group E)
The latest preliminaries stage 2 group tables are available here.
Upcoming:
Preliminaries stage 2 continue this afternoon, getting under way at 3pm with a mouth-watering clash between England and Jamaica – ranked third and second in the world respectively. Also in action this afternoon are Scotland, who take on South Africa, while Trinidad and Tobago play Uganda (all Group G) and Fiji and Samoa clash in Group E.
The full tournament schedule is available to view here.
