Jess Thirlby: Ex-England netball coach says missing out on Commonwealth Games is ‘horrible’

England’s 61-45 World Cup final defeat to Australia in 2023 signalled the end of a terrific campaign in South Africa under Thirlby, five years on from winning the Commonwealth Games Gold Medal match in dramatic circumstances against the Diamonds under the stewardship of her predecessor Tracey Neville.

The Roses have been placed in the same pool with Australia, who they take on in Glasgow on 26 July, along with South Africa, Malawi, Tonga and Northern Ireland.

Thirlby, who represented England as a player in the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, believes the gap between England and Australia is shrinking.

She said: “The fact that our fans are expectant now for the team to be successful is a million miles away from when I represented England. It was damage limitation, ‘how many are we going to lose by?’

“We just need to play Australia more. We need to get under their skin, and I actually think they don’t want to play us as much any more.

“We’ve just started to turn the tide. It’s the biggest compliment when it becomes really difficult to pin them down for a series because there’s a risk to them.

“[If] they play number three or four in the world, and they lose, it’s a problem for them. We did get up to number two in the world, and that’s our highest ever ranking, so there’s a lot of positivity amongst the noise.

“Without cliche, this is definitely for global netball the closest it’s ever been. There are genuinely five teams that are capable of winning [The Commonwealth Games].

“How great is that? For so long there has been a monopoly between Australia and New Zealand. Tournaments were boring, you were just waiting for the last match of the tournament and you knew the two teams that would be in it.

“I think England are more than capable on their day of going out there with the hunger and the fight in their belly. We’ve got some outstanding, world-class players in our team.

“It is a difficult pool but it could be the best possible preparation for when we get in a semi-final because we will have had to already face Australia, we’ll have already had to face South Africa who are on the rise.

“England are capable of beating South Africa. They have, and can, beat Australia and when they cross over to the semi-final it may be easier and better as a result of being in that pool to start with.”