Australia have kept their hopes of winning the Fast5 World Series netball alive as undefeated England shape as favourites heading into Sunday's final day.
The host nation lost to Jamaica midway through Saturday's first day but they bounced back against reigning champions New Zealand on Saturday night, winning 40-30 and all but eliminating their rival from the competition.
With the grand final to be played between the top-two teams, New Zealand's two losses leaves them needing to win their final two games and rely on other results to have any hope.
England, with three wins and the most goals, still have to play Australia on Sunday but looked assured of the grand final while Jamaica, who play NZ and England, and Australia will be left to scrap for second place.
The grand final pairing won't be known until the last group game between England and Jamaica.
Australian shooter Gretel Tippett shot nine from 11 against NZ while emerging shooter Kaylia Stanton was dominant in the second term power play shooting two twos and then a three-pointer (worth six points in the power play) which pushed out the lead to 28-14 at half-time.
New Zealand are known for dominating power plays in previous years but Australia turned on their best term of the day during the third quarter restricting New Zealand to just eight points and no three-pointers to hold a 34-22 lead heading into the last.
From there Australia controlled the last term to claim the win.
Tippett said England were beatable heading into Sunday's deciding games.
"They are very tough and the most experienced team here - they are going to be a great challenge and we love a challenge," Tippett said after the NZ game.
"What we did differently this game was just bring more energy and then shooting comes, defence comes from that extra energy.
"We need to play our normal game but bring more energy and mongrel."
New Zealand's Erikana Pedersen said her team would fight it out on Sunday and look to improve after struggling in their power plays across the day.
"We were just saying it might be best for us to not know when our power play is," Pedersen said.
"We still have two games Sunday, there is big pressure on us to perform and we will just focus on those two games."
England took all before them on the opening day beating New Zealand 37-30 in their opening game before comfortably accounting for Malawi and South Africa.
Former Melbourne Vixens defender Geva Mentor leads a starting five who all played in Super Netball last season and England clearly had the best tactics methodically setting up their shots rather than rushing to shoot.
England's Jo Harten and Helen Housby were more poised in attack, often passing out to a teammate and re-establishing position before shooting for goal.
English defender Ama Agbeze said her side knew they had more tough games to come on Sunday despite taking three wins from day one.
"We do have familiarity between the players we play with but it's a completely different game so I don't know that is what has done it," Agbeze said.
"I think it is just we played quiet smartly."
The final day of Fast5 netball is at Hisense Arena on Sunday starting at 12.15pm, the grand final will be at 7.25pm with all games live on GEM.
- This story was originally published on The Age.
