Cats were well and truly thrown among the pigeons when Mid Canterbury Netball’s ACL Premier competition made a rare Tuesday night appearance this week.

While many would’ve picked the top-of-the-table clash between Celtic Auric Electrical A and Hampstead Ray White A to be the match up of the night in premier 1, it turned out to be the most convincing result of the night, with Celtic recovering from a slow start to win 37-21.

Instead it was the other two premier 1 games that provided the biggest talking points of the night, with both Rylib Southern Lights and and Mt Somers Victory Lime A picking up what many would’ve classed as unexpected wins.

Mt Somers’ 30-26 win over Methven Wareings propelled them in to outright third spot on the premier 1 leaderboard with just the one second round game left to play before the promotion/relegation game that awaits the bottom team from premier 1 and the top team from premier 2. But things are pretty tight from there down on the leaderboard after an action-packed night on Tuesday.

Southern also picked up their first win of the season, beating United KFC A in a nailbiter 30-28, although it wasn’t enough to pull the Southerners off the bottom of the table. For now they share that spot with Methven A, however the Methven side are ahead thanks to a far superior goal difference.

Methven weren’t at their best in their latest outing though, and their defenders struggled to contain the Mt Somers attack, with Kate Oliver outstanding at goal attack for the second week running.

For the prior two weeks, against Celtic and Hampstead, Mt Somers had stuck with their opposition for the first half but the games got away from them in the second half. This week that was more Hampstead’s story though, as their game against Celtic got away from them as time went on.

Both sides started slowly - it took Hampstead three-and-a-half minutes to score the game’s first goal, and Celtic seven-and-a-half minutes to score their first goal. At just 4-all at quarter time it was looking like being a low scoring game dominated by defence, but Celtic started to find their feet in the second quarter and by half time were out to a 14-8 lead.

Molly Stapleton had a top game at wing defence, while Celtic’s defensive duo of Gina Woodhouse and Anna Holland were strong on rebounds which enabled sisters Rebecca Cochrane and Steph Polson to create opportunities on attack.

Hampstead defender Hannah Glassey worked tirelessly to create opportunities for her side, but in the end Celtic were just too slick, gradually building on their lead as the game progressed and claiming the win to remain the team to beat in ACL premier 1.

And beat them is exactly what Southern will need to do next week if they’re to stand any chance of avoiding a promotion/relegation date with the top team from ACL premier two, a position which has already been claimed with one game to spare.

Rakaia ProShear continued their unbeaten run in 2022 to take an unassailable lead in ACL Premier 2 with one game remaining in round two, although they had it far from their own way on Tuesday against the team sitting at the bottom of the premier 2 table, Hampstead Ray White B. The Hampstead side led for periods early on and Rakaia needed to call on all of their experience to get home in the end 38-29, a result which both secured them top spot, and assured Hampstead B the bottom spot in round two.

Earlier in the evening Allenton had produced one of their better performances of the season, downing College A 40-29 to move in to outright second in premier 2, but they’re still six points behind an unreachable Rakaia, with Methven EuroAgri B and Celtic Darryl Phillips Motor Company keeping those two teams company in the congested middle of the table.

Premier 2 has been where the closest results have been for much of the season, and that pattern continued when Methven B and Celtic B met on Tuesday, with the Celtic side only pulling away in the final five minutes to claim the win 37-30.

In ACL Premier 3 the results were a tad more one sided, with Methven Shearmac continuing the dominance which they hope will lead them to a spot in that promotion/relegation game against Hampstead B, beating Methven Humm Engineering 45-16.

It was a good night for Hampstead Ray White U18 Development too, with their 34-16 win over College B putting them into second spot on the leaderboard, while College Y10B picked up a big 46-13 win over United KFC B.

Article added: Tuesday 21 June 2022