Kate Heffernan takes the ball for the Silver Ferns against England. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The England Roses have taken the first match in the Taini Jamison Trophy netball series with a 59-58 win in Auckland.
The scores were desperately close throughout. New Zealand led by one after the first quarter, the scores were tied 29-all at halftime and England went into the final quarter with a one-point lead.
They held the lead until late in the match when the Silver Ferns levelled and then briefly led by one, but the England side, fresh from their 2-1 series loss to Australia, pulled out the stops when it counted in the last 90 seconds.
Both coaches retained their starting sevens for the first two quarters, but changes came at the start of the third with Claire O'Brien making her international debut for the Ferns, while later in the match Parris Mason also made her New Zealand debut.
The England side proved more disciplined when it came to turnovers, but the Silver Ferns, without the benefit of hard match play, should improve for the remaining two matches.
England were strong in the middle of the court with slick passes fired to shooters Liv Tchine (41/45) and Helen Housby (18/21).
Grace Nweke scored 49 from 55 attempts for the Silver Ferns and captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio seven from eight.
England captain Fran Williams said she was delighted with how her team closed out the match.
"I'm just so proud,'' she told Sky Sport.
The second match of the series is in Porirua on Wednesday and Williams said the Silver Ferns would be a bigger threat.
"We know they are a classy side and will show up on Wednesday.''
Ekenasio rued the rustiness of the Silver Ferns.
"There were multiple different times in the game we kind of got a bit of momentum and then lost a few too many turnovers," she told Sky.
"When we were good, we were really good, and then we probably had little patches when we lost a few in a row. That's really dangerous when you're playing international netball and we can definitely be better at that.''
Ekenasio said the fact that they had not played for two-and-a-half months was telling.