T&T goal-at­tack Kali­fa Mc Collin missed on­ly one of her 14 at­tempts on goal, but her As­cot Park Ho­tel South­ern Steel had a fourth quar­ter to for­get scor­ing on­ly five goals in a 40-47 loss to Te Wanan­gan Raukawa in Round Four of the New Zealand ANZ Pre­mier­ship, yes­ter­day.

Af­ter trail­ing 14-11 at the end of the first quar­ter, the Steel com­ing off its first win on the sea­son in the pre­vi­ous round looked on course for a shock win over un­beat­en Pulse as they led 24-23 and 35-33 at the end of the sec­ond and third quar­ters.

How­ev­er, in the fi­nal quar­ter, the Pulse showed their po­tent cre­den­tials when de­liv­er­ing a with­er­ing last quar­ter to dis­man­tle the 24-year-old Mc Collin and her team-mates at the Auck­land Net­ball Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day.

In im­pos­ing form for three-quar­ters, the Steel shoot­ers, Mc Collin (3/3) and Jen­nifer O’Con­nell (2/3) were re­strict­ed to just five goals in the clos­ing quar­ter af­ter be­ing left score­less for the first six min­utes.

At the oth­er end, Pulse shoot­ers Ameliaranne Eke­na­sio and Aliyah Dunn pro­duced a rare dou­ble with per­fect re­turns, Eke­na­sio with 25/25 and Dunn 22/22.

It was an en­ter­pris­ing start by both teams but it was the poise and bal­ance of styl­ish goal-at­tack Eke­na­sio (8/8) who helped the Pulse get the bet­ter of the open­ing ex­changes. Eke­na­sio was in the thick of the ac­tion in set­ting up the cir­cle while al­so pro­vid­ing the bulk of the scor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties with Dunn adding six from six.

At the oth­er end, the Steel took time to find the ac­cu­ra­cy of pass in­to shoot­ers O’Con­nell (9/9) and for­mer Eng­land-based Mc Collin (2/3) but once in the groove, they fought their way back from a six-goal deficit to trail the Pulse 14-11 at the first break.

Turnovers high­light­ed the re­sump­tion of play be­fore both teams set­tled in­to their work, the Pulse giv­ing up a five-goal lead as the Steel staged a stir­ring come­back.

Steel wing at­tack Gi­na Cramp­ton came to life in stun­ning fash­ion with her avail­abil­i­ty to the ball and pin-per­fect ac­cu­ra­cy in­to O’Con­nell (11/13) who used her im­pos­ing height to gain per­fect po­si­tion­ing, to take all ball thrown her way and un­wa­ver­ing ac­cu­ra­cy while Mc Collin chipped in with two goals from as many at­tempts.

At the oth­er end of the court, Pulse shoot­ers Eke­na­sio (4/4) and Dunn (5/5) were thrown off their stride and lost their con­nec­tions de­spite shoot­ers Eke­na­sio and Dunn re­turn­ing a per­fect shoot­ing record but be­ing re­strict­ed to just nine shots.

Six goals on the trot pushed the Steel in­to the lead for the first time as they held on for a nar­row 24-23 ad­van­tage at the main break.

A goal-for-goal arm wres­tle fea­tured in the ear­ly stages of the third stan­za be­fore the Steel, once again, showed a strong hand in­spired by the play­mak­ing T&T im­port Mc Collin (6/6) who came in­to her own as the Steel made the most of their in­creased turnover op­por­tu­ni­ties while O’Con­nell added five goals from sev­en at­tempts

At the oth­er end of the court, de­fend­ers Te Hu­ni­ga Reo Sel­by-Rick­it and Taneisha Fi­fi­ta helped lim­it the Pulse on at­tack, re­sult­ing in Met­u­a­rau en­ter­ing the fray at wing at­tack late in the piece.

But it was the Pulse who had it all ahead of them when the Steel led 35-33 at the last break, and in the fi­nal pe­ri­od, as the Pulse got red hot the Steel melt­ed un­der the pres­sure and were outscored 5-14 to stum­ble 40-47.

The win lift­ed the Pulse to a 4-0 record and 16 points while North­ern Mys­tics sits sec­ond at 4-1 with 16 points as well. Main­land Tac­tix is third with a 2-3 and nine points fol­lowed by North­ern Stars (1-3) with six points, Steel (1-4) with five and Mag­ic with a 1-2 record and four points.

Over­all, Eke­na­sio shot a per­fect 25 from 25 at­tempts and Dunn was al­so flaw­less at 22 from 22 while O'Con­nell led Steel with 27 goals from 32 at­tempts, and Mc Collin13 from 14 at 93 per cent shoot­ing over­all.

Af­ter five match­es, Mc Collin who en­joyed three sea­sons in the Eng­land Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball Su­per League be­fore join­ing the Steel at the start of the sea­son has scored 70 goals from 88 at­tempts for ninth spot at 88 per cent.

Up next for Steel is re­peat clash with Pulse on Fri­day from 3 am (TT time) while they al­so face Robin­hood North­ern Stars, the club of in­jured T&T goal de­fence Daystar Swift on Sat­ur­day from 1 am (TT time).

The Stars al­so meet Splice Con­struc­tion on Sun­day, Ju­ly 12 but be­fore that, they meet the same Splice Con­struc­tion to­mor­row from 3 am.