Match preview: Surrey Storm v Hertfordshire Mavericks

Surrey Storm return to Surrey Sports Park this afternoon for the penultimate fixture of the regular Fiat Netball Superleague season as they face the Hertfordshire Mavericks.

Date, time and coverage

Saturday 23rd April 2012, 7pm. Live text updates via @surreystorm.

Form Guide

Surrey Storm go into the fixture on the back on two very confident victories over rivals Northern Thunder, ensuring that they remain top of Tier 1 and currently unbeaten. A win or draw tonight will secure top spot going into the finals in May.

Monday night’s fixture for the Sky TV cameras will be another to go down in Storm history as the girls firmly turned the tables on Thunder, giving themselves two wins out of two in phase 2 with a 57-61 victory. Pam Cookey was on top form that night, putting away 90% of her attempts on goal.

Mavericks will be happy following Monday’s result in Manchester as this now means they can steal 2nd place from Thunder with a victory this evening. Their last outing was 7 days ago in Hatfield when they overcame Team Bath 52-47 in a 3rd v 4th battle, leaving struggling Bath with 4 defeats in 4 at the foot of the table.

Head to Head

Storm took the spoils in the last meeting between the two sides, running out 42-48 winners away from home. It was also these teams that opened the 2012 Superleague season in January where Surrey ran out 47-62 winners.

Many fans will (unfortunately) remember the 2011 Grand Final meeting between the sides where Mavericks defeated Storm 57-46.

Storm just about edge the historical stats, winning 4 times in comparison to Mavericks 2, with 1 draw between the sides.

Ins and Outs

Storm will name an unchanged side for this evening’s fixture as they face no injuries from Monday’s game.

Player-coach Tamsin Greenway is looking forward to tonight’s fixture and believes that the squad has taken more than 3 points away from their victory against Thunder: “Monday night was special. It was great to hit the road and get a confident win under our belts. Beating Thunder at home gave us the belief that we could do it again and we did. Beating Thunder away has given us even more of a boost.

We can beat anyone at home or away and tonight will be no different. It certainly helps knowing that we are so close to securing that top spot but we also know that Mavericks have a lot to play for so they will want the win just as much as we do.

We really want the fans to get behind us tonight. Two games in a week is tough when you factor in training and travelling around too. Our fans mean a lot to us- we couldn’t do it without them!”

Expected Squad to face Mavericks: Reid, Holland, Seaton, Bello, Trippick, Modeste, Ainsworth, Plom, Greenway, Dunn, Cookey, McHale and Davis.