Samoa and Fiji grab wins at netball world cup

Samoa's netballers grabbed their first win of the World Cup at the fourth attempt, finishing strongly to beat Singapore 46-39 in the second round of group matches.

The Samoans won the opening two quarters but fell behind in the third period before finishing strongly.

Coach Marcia Hardcastle says it's a relief to finally get a win on the board, against a team they know well, having played them a couple of times in recent years.

"Just a couple of changes we changed in the last quarter made a difference - put fresh legs out. The team is still up there and we've got still a long road to get there. What we've got to do now is make sure we recover and be ready for tomorrow because Zambia's not going to be no easy beats".

Coach Kate Carpenter says the performance was the most pleasing aspect and says the players have been boosted by their recent results.

"Really good to get some wins because it just lifts us again. Probably today's win I thought was the better one just because of the way we played: managed to get everyone on court but I thought our leg-speed, our ball-speed, our sharpness was there and we were playing with confidence so that was really encouraging going into the Barbados match tomorrow".

Meanwhile in the big games last night, New Zealand held off a strong challenge from Jamaica to win 55-48 while hosts Australia beat England 51-41.