Jo Pettitt, 21, is from West Linton in the Scottish Borders and has been a Scottish internationalist for four years, accumulating 16 caps to date.
We had a first in our match against Manchester Thunder on Monday – we went to extra time for the first time in the season.
At the end of the regulation 60 minutes we were drawing 58-58, so we went into two lots of seven minutes of extra time.
It was a really hard-fought game by both teams but, unfortunately for us, Manchester stepped it up in extra time and sneaked the win.
It was gutting to lose in extra time but they are an extremely good team. What was encouraging was that it wasn’t a fitness issue that caused us to lose, we just need to tighten up on our netball in those final moments.
Our coach Gail Parata is great in those high-pressure situations. She’s a New Zealander and straight-talking. She has so much experience so knows exactly what to say in the moment.
She really helps us all to focus on what our processes are to make sure that we perform well and achieve our end goal. She’s very reassuring, too, which gives us a lot of confidence.
I’ve been coached by Gail for a few years now with the national team and I love working with her. She’s really excellent on the tactical side of the game and she teaches us a lot of sneaky plays that we can use during matches that might catch the other team off guard.
Tonight, we play Wasps which is the team we played in our season-opener so it’ll be a very good gauge of how far we’ve progressed since match one.
Tonight will be our 11th match of the season and we’re all learning as individual players as well as developing as a team with every game.
Last time, Wasps beat us 57-43 but since that season-opener, we’re much more together as a team so I can’t wait to see how we get on tonight. If we perform to our best, I really believe we’ll win.
For me, personally, this season has been great because I’ve learnt so much from the experienced players and especially Carla Borrego and Ellen Halpenny who are Jamaican and Kiwi internationalists respectively. Training with them has been a real privilege because they’re constantly giving me pointers and helping me improve as a player.
Having them in the team is so comforting for us younger players because we know we’ve got players who can help us all handle every situation that’s thrown at us.
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