The Red Roses will battle for Commonwealth Games bronze after fierce battle with world number ones Australia in the Commonwealth Games semi-finals.

Four years ago Helen Housby's last gasp penalty goal snatched the gold medal from the hosts at the end of a pulsating battle but in Birmingham it was not to be as Australia ran out 60-51 winners.

Jess Thirlby’s team arrived with confidence brimming after a win over world champions New Zealand while the Diamonds were reeling from a shock defeat to Jamaica, who they now take on in Sunday’s final.

And they will now reset their sights on another match with the Silver Ferns for bronze, the same medal they won at the 2019 World Cup in Liverpool.

"We need to acknowledge this loss and own it," said captain Natalie Metcalf.

"We're a really close group and we don't want to leave the Games with nothing to show for it.

"They got ahead too early, too soon and we gave ourselves too much work to do. We just didn't look after our turn on ball well enough.

"We're taking lots of confidence from the fact we beat New Zealand in the group stages and there is still so much to play for.

"We're gutted not to be able to make the final but it's really important that we regroup and pull together. We've got to look at what went wrong and correct that."


Coach Jess Thirlby added: "If you play well and lose, you can get your head around it but we just gave ourselves a mountain to climb.

"There was nothing in there we didn't expect but we were found wanting for ball and that's uncharacteristic for us. Australia were too smart but we expected more of ourselves.”

And Housby, the hero in 2018, said there'll be no wallowing in this defeat as the Red Roses look to finish with a flourish in front of what will be another vibrant home crowd.

"They were better and smarter than us, we had periods in the game where we matched them but they were not consistent," she said.

"A medal is still a medal, so playing for bronze against New Zealand is going to be huge. We've got one over on them already but you can't rely on that.

"Having a loss like that really puts into perspective everything we have to work on so we’ll go back to the drawing board and hopefully come back really strong."