Team England’s netballers were beaten 66-47 by Australia as they tasted defeat for the first time at the 2026 Commonwealth Games.
Australia made a fast start at The Hydro and controlled the match from then on to earn a second win as many days.
Team England now have one win and one defeat following an opening victory over Northern Ireland, but attacker Eleanor Cardwell knows there is a long way to go in the tournament.
Malawi are the next opponents on Monday and Cardwell is confident her side will bounce back.
“We've got to get straight back to focusing on ourselves,” she said.
“We don't want to catastrophise everything. We're going to pick out one or two things to really concentrate on and try to be more connected.
“There were a lot of moments that were good. Now we know where we stand. We know the things that we need to work on.
“We had an incredible training camp and preparation, so now we need to have a really good look at ourselves and see what we need to do.
“We all do our homework on each other, and now it's about getting back to the hotel, looking at some more analysis, trying to keep the vibes going, and taking confidence from how far we've come. We'll be ready tomorrow.”
After an even start, Australia put themselves in a commanding position with a string of turnovers.
Team England then had to chase the game and despite the best efforts, were only able to see the deficit increase until the fourth quarter, which they won 12-10.
That was plenty of encouragement for captain Fran Williams ahead of the rest of the pool stage.
She said: “It's really tough when a game blows out like that in the second half. You've got to make sure that you're still going after those small wins and little fights.
“That's why I'm so proud of the last 15 minutes in terms of getting a quarter win at the end when it was tough.
“[Malawi is] another match against a completely different style of opposition. That will be different again.
“We'll go back to the hotel, recover, do our own analysis and get ready for them. They're a different team and play with different game styles.”
James Reid/Sportsbeat 2026
